5 Olivetti Room
The history of Italian computer science is closely linked to the history of Olivetti, of which we have an extensive collection. In this room, we wanted to exhibit two of the large calculators produced by this company: two pieces from the ELEA series. ELEA stands for "Elaboratore Elettronico Aritmetico" (Arithmetic Electronic Processor), but the name was chosen as a reference to the ancient Greek colony.
Research for the construction of these mainframe computers began in the mid-1950s with a small group of researchers led by Mario Tchou, who in 1957 created the Zero Machine, the prototype of the series, completed simultaneously with the Smaller Machine of the University of Pisa.
In 1959, Olivetti began leasing copies of the ELEA 9003, the third model in the series and the first to be commercialized, a completely transistorized machine. The ELEA 6001 was designed to be a smaller version, aimed at commercial or scientific applications, in its two versions.
In collaboration with the Institute for Calculation Applications in Rome, the company began working on the 9104 model in 1964. It was never completed: due to a series of unfortunate events, including the premature deaths of Adriano Olivetti and Mario Tchou, the Olivetti electronics division was sold to General Electric, an international company competing with IBM.
This was not the end for Olivetti, which continued to produce its typewriters, calculators, and finally Personal Computers.
