Comment by Ravus

4 days ago

If we're on the topic of hardware, let's remember that a few years before ARPANET, Olivetti was a powerhouse rivaling IBM. The ELEA mainframe came out with a competitive design in 1957.

One of the reasons why things did not pan out is that, three years later, 58 years old Adriano Olivetti died of a heart attack on the train to Switzerland. Even discounting the theory of a CIA assassination (which has, nevertheless, been floated around), that was a butterfly-flapping-its-wings moment; without pressure from the US government wanting to maintain technological supremacy, he might have been under less stress and survived.

In that scenario, maybe the same international visitors who currently visit Milan for luxury fashion would also haul back high tech from the so-called Valle del Silicio stretching towards Turin along the Fondo river.

Or, of course, another one between a million different outcomes could have happened. Human creativity and inventiveness finds a way to flourish everywhere.

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Ravus

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ben_w  4 days ago 

  At one point in the 1980s, Olivetti was the world's third largest personal computer manufacturer[8] and remained the largest such European manufacturer during the 1990s

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivetti

Wow, I'm genuinely surprised. I don't think I've even heard of them before now, despite growing up in the 80s and 90s in the UK. ZX Spectrum, BBC Micros, Acorns, but not Olivetti.

  • Fnoord  4 days ago

    Funny you mention that. For me (Dutch), growing up in same time, Wimbledon and Roland Garros are the two main tennis tournaments. When these were on TV, Olivetti brand was prominently mentioned at the scoreboards. I always imagined they were a brand who made the computers used for the scoreboards, but otherwise had no idea what that brand meant. You wouldn't 'Google' or 'Wikipedia' it. You saw it, you asked your parents (or other peers), and they'd either know or not.