Olivetti Lettera 32
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The
Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been par ...
company, an
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
manufacturer of
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s, tablets,
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s, printers and other such business products as
calculator An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-sized ...
s and
fax machines Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephone, telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a ...
, was founded as a
typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...
s manufacturer by
Camillo Olivetti Samuel David Camillo Olivetti known just as Camillo (August 13, 1868 – December 1943) was an Italian electrical engineer and founder of Olivetti & Co., SpA., the Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines. The ...
in 1908 in the
Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...
commune of Ivrea,
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
. By 1994, Olivetti stopped production of typewriters, as more and more users were transitioning to
personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or te ...
s.


The mechanical models


M1 (1911)

Until the mid-1960s, the Olivetti typewriters were fully mechanical. Introduced at the Word Fair in Turin in 1911, the first Olivetti typewriter, the M1, was made of about 3000 hand made parts and weighed 17 kg. It was the first Italian typewriter and had a keyboard of 42 keys corresponding to 84 signs, 33-cm paper roll allowing for 110 characters and featured two-colored ribbon, automatic reverse direction, and return key.Dante's endorsement for the Olivetti M1
''Italianways.com'' (March 2015) Heavy and massive, it was intended for professional use in offices.


M20 (1920)

In 1920 the M1 was replaced by a new model, the M20. It featured several innovations, including the trolley running on a fixed guideway. Unlike the M1, which was essentially sold in Italy, it was exported to many European and non-European markets.


M40 (1930)

To update the M20, Olivetti worked on a new model which came out in 1930 and remained in production until 1948, the M40. A second version came out in 1937 and another one in the 1940s. Customers particularly appreciated the fixed-guide carriage, the lightness of touch of the keyboard and the speed of writing.


MP1 (1932)

In 1932, Olivetti presented a portable typewriter shortly after the launch of the M40: the MP1 (Modello Portatile in Italian). Conceived by Gino Martinoli and
Adriano Olivetti Adriano Olivetti (11 April 1901 – 27 February 1960) was an Italian engineer, politician, and industrialist whose entrepreneurial activity thrived on the idea that profit should be reinvested for the benefits of the whole society. He was son of ...
, engineered by Riccardo Levi, and designed by Aldo and Adriano Magnelli, it was intended for both office and domestic use. It weighed only 5.2 kilos, as compared to the M1, which weighed 17 kilos, measured 11.7 centimetres high, half the height of the M1. The mechanism was partly concealed by the body, and the monumental vertical structure of the M1 had been flattened and lightened. In addition to the black colour of the M1 and M20, the MP1 was offered in red, blue, light blue, brown, green, grey, and ivory.


Studio 42 (1935)

Also known as the M2, it was designed in 1935 by Figini and Pollini, Ottavio Luzzati and Xanti Schawinsky. It is characterized by the various colors available: in addition to the classic black, it was also available in red, gray, brown and light blue. The keyboard is the QZERTY type, as is usual for Italian machines (apart from modern computer keyboards). In addition to the writing keys, the keyboard includes a space bar, two shift keys, a shift lock, a return key, and a tab key. The set of writing keys has an obvious lack: there is no key with the number 1, which is obtained by using the lowercase letter l (L) or the capital I (i); likewise, there is no zero, which is obtained by typing the capital O (o). Although this may seem strange today, it was quite common in the old typewriters. There is also a portable version, with the machine fixed on a wooden base with black imitation leather and a removable protection also covered in wood, a black leather carrying handle and a chrome lock.


Lexikon 80 (1948)


Studio 42 (1950)


Lettera 22 (1950)

The Olivetti Lettera 22 is a portable mechanical
typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...
designed by Marcello Nizzoli in 1949 or, according to the company's current owner
Telecom Italia Gruppo TIM, legally TIM S.p.A. (formerly Telecom Italia S.p.A.), also known as the TIM Group in English, is an Italian telecommunications company with headquarters in Rome, Milan, and Naples, (with the Telecom Italia Tower) which provides fixed ...
, 1950. This typewriter was very popular in
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, and it still has many fans. It was awarded the Compasso d'oro prize in 1954. In 1959 the
Illinois Institute of Technology Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...
chose the ''Lettera 22'' as the best design product of the previous 100 years. The typewriter is sized about 27x37x8 cm (with the
carriage return A carriage return, sometimes known as a cartridge return and often shortened to CR, or return, is a control character or mechanism used to reset a device's position to the beginning of a line of text. It is closely associated with the line feed ...
lever adding about 1–2 more centimeters in height), making it quite portable at least for the time's standards, even though its weight may limit portability somewhat. The model was eventually succeeded by the Olivetti Lettera 32.


Mechanics

The Lettera 22 is an oblique frontstroke typebar typewriter. The typebars strike a red/black inked ribbon, which is positioned between the typebar and the paper by a lever whenever a key is pressed; a small switch located near the upper right side of the keyboard can be used to control the strike position of the ribbon, in order to print with black, red, or no ink (for
mimeograph A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a copy made by the proc ...
stencils). Ribbon movement, which also occurs at every keypress, automatically reverses direction when there is no ribbon left on the feed reel; two mechanical sensors, situated next to each wheel, move when the ribbon is put under tension (indicating ribbon end), attaching the appropriate wheel to the ribbon transport mechanism and detaching the other. The Lettera 22 uses a basket shift or segment shift (that is, the unit including the typebars moves up and down when shifting, as opposed to the carriage shift system). The Lettera 22 is quite compact compared to other 1950s portable typewriters using a basket shift, such as the Smith Corona Sterling or Remington-Rand Quiet-Riter. The Lettera 22 also features a tabulator setting and clearing system that is controlled from the keyboard, and an innovative margin release that does double duty as a paragraph indentation key (it indents a paragraph when it is held down as the carriage is returned).


Keyboard

For the Italian market the
keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Mu ...
is in the QZERTY layout, as with most Italian machines (excluding modern computer keyboards). Aside from the typing keys, the keyboard includes a
space bar The space bar is on the bottom center of the keyboard The space bar, spacebar, blank, or space key is a key on a typewriter or alphanumeric keyboard in the form of a horizontal bar in the lowermost row, significantly wider than all other keys. ...
, two
shift key The Shift key is a modifier key on a keyboard, used to type capital letters and other alternate "upper" characters. There are typically two shift keys, on the left and right sides of the row below the home row. The Shift key's name originated f ...
s, one caps lock key, a
backspace Backspace () is the keyboard key that originally pushed the typewriter carriage one position backwards and in modern computer systems moves the display cursor one position backwards,"Backwards" means to the left for left-to-right languages. delete ...
key and a margin release key. Of these, only the backspace key bears a mark on it (an arrow pointing right), while the other five mentioned are left anonymous. The character set conspicuously lacks the numbers ''0'' and ''1'', which are supposed to be substituted by uppercase "O" and lowercase "l". Although this may seem like a strange absence today, this was actually common on older typewriters. Also lacking are the keys for
uppercase Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
accented A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
vowels A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...
, some of which are present in
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
; however, these characters aren't typically found on modern keyboards, either. The
keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Mu ...
for the American variant is in the
QWERTY QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden ty ...
layout. Although the character set lacks the number "1", presumably to be replaced by the lowercase "l", the "0" is present. One key has the fractions ½ and (shifted) ¼, while another has ¢ (cents) and (shifted) @. A British version is slightly different.


Layout

*Normal *Shifted


In popular culture

The Olivetti Lettera 22 is mentioned on pg. 15 of
Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...
's 2009 novel ''
Inherent Vice ''Inherent Vice'' is a novel by American author Thomas Pynchon, originally published in August 2009. A darkly comic detective novel set in 1970s California, the plot follows sleuth Larry "Doc" Sportello whose ex-girlfriend asks him to investiga ...
''. The Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter was featured in the film ''The Talented Mr. Ripley''. The novelist
Will Self William Woodard Self (born 26 September 1961) is an English author, journalist, political commentator and broadcaster. He has written 11 novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas and nine collections of non-fiction writing. Sel ...
, poet and singer
Leonard Cohen Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, depression, sexuality, loss, death, and romantic relationships. He was inducted in ...
and actor
Tom Hanks Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Ha ...
have expressed use and ownership of this typewriter.
Indro Montanelli Indro Alessandro Raffaello Schizogene Montanelli (; 22 April 1909 – 22 July 2001) was an Italian journalist, historian and writer. He was one of the fifty World Press Freedom Heroes according to the International Press Institute. A volunte ...
, the famous Italian journalist and newspaper director, used his Lettera 22 almost everywhere. A monument in Milan's public gardens
Giardini Pubblici Indro Montanelli Giardini Pubblici Indro Montanelli ("Indro Montanelli Public Gardens"), formerly known as Giardini Pubblici and Giardini di Porta Venezia (and renamed after journalist and writer Indro Montanelli in 2002) are a major and historic city park in Mi ...
, inspired from a famous photo of Montanelli from the 1950s, is dedicated to him and his Lettera 22. German writer
Günter Grass Günter Wilhelm Grass (born Graß; ; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of D ...
had three Olivetti Letteras, which he used exclusively at his homes in Portugal, Germany (
Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sc ...
) and Denmark. American writer
Joan Didion Joan Didion (; December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021) was an American writer. Along with Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and Gay Talese, she is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism. Didion's career began in the 1950s after she won ...
mentions her Olivetti Lettera 22 in her book '' Where I Was From'', recalling that she typed her 1963 novel '' Run, River'' on it. William S. Burroughs replaced his Remington typewriter with a Lettera 22 in 1964. Travel writer
Jan Morris (Catharine) Jan MorrisJan Morris, Paul Clements, University of Wales Press, 2008, p. 7 (born James Humphry Morris; 2 October 192620 November 2020) was a Welsh historian, author and travel writer. She was known particularly for the ''Pax Brita ...
reported using an Olivetti Valentine, a bright red model of the Lettera, from the 1960s until she "entered the computer age.". In chapter 99 of
Hopscotch Hopscotch is a popular playground game in which players toss a small object, called a lagger, into numbered triangles or a pattern of rectangles outlined on the ground and then hop or jump through the spaces and retrieve the object. It is a ch ...
, Argentinian novelist
Julio Cortázar Julio Florencio Cortázar (26 August 1914 – 12 February 1984; ) was an Argentine, nationalized French novelist, short story writer, essayist, and translator. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced an ...
writes (translation follows) "En aquel tiempo había sido como si lo que escribía estuviese ya tendido delante de él, escribir era pasar una Lettera 22 sobre palabras invisibles pero presentes, como el diamante por el surco del disco." This translates to "In those times it had been as though what he wrote were already stretched out ahead of him, writing was passing a Lettera 22 over invisible but present words, like the needle on the groove of the record."


Studio 44 (1952)


Diaspron 82 (1959)


Lettera 10 (1979)


Lettera 32 (1963)

The Olivetti Lettera 32 is a portable mechanical
typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...
designed by Marcello Nizzoli for
Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been par ...
in 1963 as the successor of the popular Olivetti Lettera 22. The Lettera 32 was also very popular amongst writers, journalists and students. The typewriter is sized about 34x35x10 cm (with the
carriage return A carriage return, sometimes known as a cartridge return and often shortened to CR, or return, is a control character or mechanism used to reset a device's position to the beginning of a line of text. It is closely associated with the line feed ...
lever adding about 1–2 centimeters in height), making it portable at least for the time's standards, even though its 5.9 kg weight may limit portability somewhat. The ''Lettera 32'' did not come with a manual but with an instruction card.


Mechanics

The Lettera 32 is a downstrike typebars typewriter. The typebars strike a red/black inked ribbon, which is positioned between the typebar and the paper by a lever whenever a key is pressed; a small switch located near the upper right side of the keyboard can be used to control the strike position of the ribbon, in order to print with black, red, or no ink (for mimeograph stencils). Ribbon movement, which also occurs at every keypress, automatically reverses direction when there is no ribbon left on the feed reel; two mechanical sensors, situated next to each wheel, move when the ribbon is put under tension (indicating ribbon end), attaching the appropriate wheel to the ribbon transport mechanism and detaching the other.


Keyboard

The
keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Mu ...
uses
QWERTY QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden ty ...
, AZERTY and various other layouts. Apart from the typing keys, the keyboard includes a
space bar The space bar is on the bottom center of the keyboard The space bar, spacebar, blank, or space key is a key on a typewriter or alphanumeric keyboard in the form of a horizontal bar in the lowermost row, significantly wider than all other keys. ...
, two
shift key The Shift key is a modifier key on a keyboard, used to type capital letters and other alternate "upper" characters. There are typically two shift keys, on the left and right sides of the row below the home row. The Shift key's name originated f ...
s, a caps lock, a
backspace Backspace () is the keyboard key that originally pushed the typewriter carriage one position backwards and in modern computer systems moves the display cursor one position backwards,"Backwards" means to the left for left-to-right languages. delete ...
key, margin release key, paragraph indentation key and a tab-stop set/unset key. As was common in older typewriters, it lacks the number ''1'', which is supposed to be substituted by the lowercase ''l''.


Popular culture

Cormac McCarthy Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr., July 20, 1933) is an American writer who has written twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays and three short stories, spanning the Western and post-apocalyptic genres. He is known for his g ...
used an Olivetti Lettera 32 to write nearly all of his fiction, screenplays, and correspondence, totalling by his estimate more than 5 million words. The Lettera 32 that he purchased in 1963 was auctioned at Christie's on December 4, 2009, to an unidentified American collector for $254,500, more than 10 times its high estimate of $20,000. McCarthy paid $11 for a replacement typewriter of the same model, but in newer condition.
Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five ...
used an Olivetti Lettera 32 to write the screenplay for the 1972 motion picture ''
The Godfather ''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same title. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caa ...
'', which he also directed.


Subsequent models

From then on, the technology of the hand-held portables tends to stabilize. The mechanics of the Lettera 32 is therefore maintained at the base of the subsequent models: the Olivetti Dora and Lettera De Luxe (1965), Lettera 25 and 35 (1974), Lettera 10 and 12 (1979) and 40/41/42 and 50/51/52 (1980) differ mainly in design.


Dora (1965)


Lettera DL (1965)


Studio 45 (1967)


Lettera 25 (1972)


Lettera 35 (1972)

The Olivetti Lettera 35 is a portable mechanical typewriter created in 1972 by
Mario Bellini Mario Bellini (born February 1, 1935 in Milan) is an Italian architect, critic, and designer. He received a degree in architecture from Milan Polytechnic in 1959 and began working as an architect in the early 1960s. Like many other Italia ...
and released to the public in 1974. More than 10 years after the Lettera 32, Olivetti felt the need to renew the design of its portable typewriters. Thus, the Lettera 35 was launched. Unlike the Lettera 22 and 32 , which maintain a simple and essential style, the Lettera 35 features a robust design to create the image of a professional machine that recalls the future Lettera 36, an electric typewriter released in 1970.


Mechanics

With the same mechanics as the Lettera 32, the Olivetti Lettera 35 is a typewriter with pressure writing levers. Each time a key is pressed, the corresponding hammer, through the kinematic mechanism, goes to beat on the tape with red or black ink, behind which is the sheet of paper on which is thus imprinted the corresponding symbol. A lever located at the top right of the keyboard can be used to control the position of the ribbon and select printing in black, red or without ink (in case of copies with carbon paper or for the preparation of ink matrices for the
mimeograph A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a copy made by the proc ...
). The ribbon winds with each key press and automatically changes winding direction when it is finished in one of the two spools in which it is wound. Two mechanical sensors located near each spool move when the ribbon stretches (this indicates that it is finishing) and reverse its winding direction.


Keyboard

The original Italian version used the QZERTY keyboard, although versions with different key arrangements were produced which corresponded with other languages. The alphanumeric keys totaled 43 of the 86 total keys. Other than this, the keyboard had a space bar, two keys to set uppercase letters, a caps lock key, a lever to for the ability to go beyond the set margins, a key for backspacing, a lever to switch tabs, and a (red) key to switch between tabs. Dalla MP1 alla Valentine, passando per la Lettera 22 e 32
''Storiaolivetti.it'' (2008) The set of characters available has obvious shortcomings: there is no key with the number 1, which is obtained by using the lowercase letter l (L) or the capital I (i); there are no keys for the accented uppercase vowels used in the Italian language, which were replaced by normal letters followed by the apostrophe. This type of solution was quite common in the typewriters of the time.


Valentine (1969)

The Valentine's transgressive design of
Ettore Sottsass Ettore Sottsass (Innsbruck, Austria 14 September 1917 – Milan, Italy 31 December 2007) was a 20th century Italian architect, noted for also designing furniture, jewellery, glass, lighting, home and office wares, as well as numerous buildings an ...
, defined by the poet Giovanni Giudici as "a Lettera 32 disguised as a sixties girl", quickly became a cult product. It is the first example of a surprising, non-conformist office product that anticipates the evolution of the working world towards a more informal style.


Studio 46 (1973)


The electromechanical models

The Editor series was used for speed typing championship competition. The Editor 5 from 1969 was the top model of that series, with proportional spacing and the ability to support justified text borders. In 1972 the electromechanical typeball machines of the Lexicon 90 to 94C series were introduced, as competitors to the
IBM Selectric typewriter The IBM Selectric typewriter was a highly successful line of electric typewriters introduced by IBM on 31 July 1961. Instead of the "basket" of individual typebars that swung up to strike the ribbon and page in a typical typewriter of the peri ...
s, the top model 94c supported proportional spacing and justified text borders like the Editor 5, as well as lift-off correction.


Lexikon 80e


Praxis 48 (1964)

Based on Tekne 1 but radically changed design from Ettore Sottsass.


Tekne 1 (1962)

The Tekne and later Editor series introduced Olivett's own solution to drive the type lever. While other manufactures based their drive on a rotating roller, rubber coated or with teeth, Olivetti designed an up and down swinging flag drive which pulls the type lever towards the paper roller. So the movement of the type lever was under full control and made possible to implement a double strike protection based on inertia of the type lever and the force driven by the swinging flag to protect the types from damage when the typist unintentionally hits two or more keys at once. Tekne 1 was the base model of the series.


Tekne 2


Tekne 3


Editor 2

Renamed model from Tekne 2.


Editor 3

Initially renamed version of Tekne 3, later production derives from simplified Editor 4. Both versions, old flat and later higher version of Editor 3 were used as alphanumeric printer in Olivetti's computer P203.


Editor 4

The Editor 4 alternatively was available with textile or carbon ribbon. A special version of it was the Editor 4ST which was used by Olivetti as a alphanumeric printer for some of their first personal computers like P506 and P652. The typewriter was controlled by the computer by additional electromechanical components at the keyboard levers at the bottom of the machine.


Editor 5 (1969)

The E5 was the top model of the Editor series. Based on the E4 it has carbon ribbonb, proportional spacing and block aligned text support. The combination of proportional spacing and block aligned text is a challenge for the typist as he/she has to write every line two times, first time without printing, while that a mechanical display counts the words in the line, and in the second pass it displays to the typist how many spaces with 2 or 3 elementary steps he still has to fill in the line to get a perfect result. To type spaces with 2 or 3 elementary steps the space bar is dived into to halfes.


Lexikon 90 (1972)

The Lexikon 9x series was Olivetti's quite successfull attempt to follow IBM' Selectrix series to have exchangeable fonts on typeball. To avoid IBM's patents Olivetti made everything different, so the typeball does not rotate horizontally, but vertically, it has no moving print head, but instead the paper wagon was moving what also made possible to take over some mechanics of the Editor series. The mechanics to control the typeball was not controlled by wire ropes which made the Selectrix hard to adjust to work reliable but on turnable axles which made the Lexikon series very reliable and robust. The national keyboard layouts and typeballs were customizeable over a mechanical ' ROM' based on metal flags inside the keyboards where in production or maintanance single teeth could be broken out to change the layout according to tables in the service manual. The degrees to rotate the typeball was depending on this coding, using levers with moving turnpoint when pressing a key. The Lexikon 90 was the base model of the series.


Lexikon 92 (1972)

This is upgraded version of Lexikon 90 providing to choose different pitches.


Lexikon 93c (1972)

Upgraded version of Lexikon 92 having additional correction ribbon, so with this model already written text could be deleted half manually by press a delete key which backspaces the paper wagon and then the typist has to press the character he wants to delete. The machine instead of lifting the black ribbon it lifts the correction tape to cover up or lift off the character on the paper.


Lexikon 94c (1972)

This was the top model of the series providing proportional spacing and block aligned text similar to the Editor 5.


Lettera 36 (1974)

Portable compact electric type lever machine, produced in GDR for Olivetti. The Lettera 36 had a bat reputation as her mechanics was quite unreliable, anyhow because of her low price she was quite successfull. There were two different keyboard designs.


Lexikon 82 (1976)

Portable compact electrical printball machine, successor of Lettera 36.


The electronic models - the office machines

In 1978 Olivetti was one of the first manufacturers to introduce electronic daisywheel printer-based word processing machines, called TES 401 and TES 501. Later the ET series typewriters without (or with) LCD and different levels of text editing capabilities were popular in offices. Models in that line were ET 121, ET 201, ET 221, ET 225, ET 231, ET 351, ET 109, ET 110, ET 111, ET 112, ET 115, ET 116, ET 2000, ET 2100, ET 2200, ET 2250, ET 2300, Et 2400 and ET 2500.


TES 501 (1976)


TES 401 (1978)


ET 101 (1978)


ET 201 (1979)


ET 221 (1979


ET 231 (1980)


ET 121 (1982)


ET 225 (1982)


ET 351 (1980)


ET 110 (1983)


ET 111 (1984)


ET 115 (1984)


ET 112 (1986)


ET 116 (1986)


ET 2100 (1988)


ET 2300 (1988)


ET 2400 (1988)


ET 2500 (1988)


ET 2250 (1990)


ET 2250MD (1990)


ET 2450 (1990)


ET 2450MD (1990)


ET 1250 (1991)


ET 1250MD (1991)


The electronic models - the portables

For home users in 1982 the Praxis 35, Praxis 40 and 45D were some of the first portable electronic typewriters. Later, Olivetti added the Praxis 20, ET Compact 50, ET Compact 60, ET Compact 70, ET Compact 65/66, the ET Personal series and Linea 101. The top models were 8 lines LCD based portables like Top 100 and Studio 801, with the possibility to save the text to a 3.5-inch floppy disk.


Praxis 30 (1980)


Praxis 35 (1980)


Praxis 40 (1981)


Praxis 41 (1981)


Praxis 45D (1982)


Praxis 20 (1983)


ET Personal 50 (1985)


ET Compact 60 (1985)


ET Compact 70 (1986)


ET Personal 55 (1987)


ET Personal 56 (1987)


ET Compact 65 (1987)


ET Compact 66 (1987)


Praxis 100 (1987)


Praxis 200 (1987)


Linea 101 ()


Lettera 92 (1988)


PTP 505 ()


PTP 506 ()


PTP 605 ()


TOP 100 ()


Studio 801 ()


PTP 820 ()


ET Personal 540 (1991)


ET Personal 540 II (1992)


Jetwriter 900 (1992)


The video typewriters

The professional line was upgraded with the ETV series video typewriters based on
CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initi ...
operating system, ETV 240, ETV 250, ETV 300, ETV 350 and later
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few o ...
operating system based ETV 260, ETV 500, ETV 2700, ETV 2900, ETV 4000s word processing systems having floppy drives or
hard disk A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magn ...
s. Some of them (ETV 300, 350, 500, 2900) were external boxes that could be connected through an optional serial interface to many of the ET series office typewriters, the others were fully integrated with an external monitor which could be installed on a holder over the desk. Most of the ET/ETV/Praxis series electronic typewriters were designed by Marion Bellini.


ETV 300 (1982)

The ETV 300 wordprocessor is a
Zilog Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were ...
based box running on
CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initi ...
operating system. It was connected over serial interface to an ET 121 or ET 225 office typewriter which was used as the keyboard and daisywheel printer. The 5,25 inch single sided boot diskette starts directly in the MWP called wordprocessing software. Optionally it was available with a second floppy drive to store documents over there. Both floppy drives are 40 tracks 160 kB capacity. A rare version is the diskless ETV 300 which used to have the operating system and MWP in a ROM and storing the documents in battery buffered SRAM. The 80x25 characters green monochrome monitor with a diameter of 12 inch can stand on the ETV 300 box.


ETS 1010 (1982)


ETV 350 (1984)

The ETV 350 is the successor of ETV 300. The box was a bit more compact and instead of one or two 5.25 inch drives it was using the more modern 3,5 inc single sided diskettes with 320 kB. Usually the ETV 350 was delivered with ET 111 or ET 115 as keyboard and printer.


ETS 2010 (1984)


ETV 240 (1984)

The ETV 240 is a typewriter integrated design. On the base board it has two computers, a simpler one, based on NEC 7801 CPU to control the keyboaerd and the ET 115 office typewriter based daisywheel printer and a Z80 CPU based running CP/M 2.2 and the MWP wordprocessor software from ROM. The base configuration is diskless, storing all saved documents in battery buffered 32 kB RAM. This configuration can be enhanced by adding one 360 kB single sided 3.5 inch floppy drive supporting the same disk and document format as ETV 350. The 80x25 characters CRT 12 inch green monitor optionally can be mounted on a pivotable arm. Like ET 111 to 116 the print head has also optical sensor to detect type / pich and nationality of the daiswheel.


ETV 250 (1984)

This is enhanced version of ETV 240. Instead of ROM based design the ETV 250 boots CP/M 2.2 and MWP wordprocessor from 3.5 floppy. Optionally the ETV 250 can have two floppy drives. For ETV 240 and 250 sprockets and automatic sheet feeder could be added. The ETV 250 could be enhanced with serial interface cardridges to support serial interface, external 5,25 floppy drive for data exchange with some ET series typewriters and ETV 300. There was a special serial interface to run the ETV 250 on the Teletex network as a sender and receiver of messages, similar to teletype, this was the so called ETV 250TTX. Like on ETV 300 the wordprocessor was exitable to run standard CP/M software on this video typewriter.


ETV 260 (1986)

This video typewriter is based on Olivetti M19 mainbaord and ET 116 office typewriter daisywheel printer. As it has Intel 8088 CPU at 8 MHz (M19 is only 4.77 Mhz), 640 kB RAM and CGA graphics it runs MS-DOS and it's applications. The wordprocessing software SWS (secretary's work-station) is based on Olivetti branded MS-DOS 3.20. SWS supports to include tables which also could be used to print simple line based graphics in a document. Computer and printer are integrated in one box, like on ETV 240/250 the monitor can be installed on an arm and the keyboard is similar to IBM's XT layout. As mass storage it is uses two 3.5 inch 720 kB floppy drives or one floppy drive plus 20 MB harddisk. The daisywhell printer is fully software driven by a config.sys driver running on the 8088 CPU and behaves like an external printer on LPT1:. Thr printer driver also contains a hotkey function which is running under any MS-DOS software to write directly on the printer like a normal typewriter, inclusive correction function. The print head has optical paper sensor to automatically detect the left margin of the paper and align printing on the paper, it is printing bidirectional at 35 cps which is quite fast for a daiswheel printer. Like ET 111 to 116 the print head has also optical sensor to detect type / pich and nationality of the daiswheel. Optionally there was sprocket and automatic sheetfeeder available. The SWP wordprocessor software is able to read MWP documents of ETV 350, 240, 250 and 210s from their proprietary CP/M based disk format. Optionally there was an external DU 260 called 360 kB 5.25 inch floppy drive to support diskettes of ETV 300 for document import.


ETV 500 (1986)

This was basically a rebaged M19 personal computer. The difference is that the 8088 CPU runs at 8 instead of 4.77 MHz and instead of 5.25 inch floppy drives it uses 720 kB 3.5 inch. The client had the choice to use the same XT layout based keyboard as on ETV 260 or the keyboard of a serial connected ET 112 or ET 116 typewriter. Typically the connected typewriter was also used as the printer, or some of Olivetti's own dotmatrix or daisywheel printers coould be used.


ETV 210s (1987)

With it's thermo transfer print head, based on IBM's quietwriter patents combined with the printer chassis of ET 116 the ETV 210s was announced as the future of the typewriter. The ETV 210s runns with a Zilog Z80 compatible CPU from Hitachi, running CP/M and wordprocessor in ROM. The PC style external keyboard is quite special as it contains 80x5 characters alphanumeric LC display to write the documents. Otherwise its functionally is similar to ETV 240 supporting the same file format in battery buffered SRAM or optionally on one 3.5 inch 720 kb Floppy disks which are also able to read disks from ETV 240, 250 and 350.


ETV 2700 (1988)

The ETV 2700 is the low cost successor of ETV 260, based on the ET 2000 series printer mechanics. The machine is fully integrated, NEC V40 based PC with electronics to control the printer is on one small footprint mainboard. Even the keyboard is directly attached to the machine. The system runs MS-DOS and the SWP word processor software which is document compatible to ETV 260 / 3000 SWP. The external black and white CGA compatible can be installed on a pivotable arm. As mass storage there could be one 720 kB MS-DOS compatibl3 floppy drive, or two of them, or one of them plus 20 MB XTA interface based harddisk.


ETV 2900 (1988)


VM 2000 (1989)

This is same like ETV 2900, the only difference is modified BIOS to prevent user to boot from standard MS-DOS diskettes. So always the VM 2000 own diskettes have to be used. This prevented the user to run other MS-DOS based applications on VM 2000. This is explained by employment laws in the difference of a typewriter- and a PC worker.


ETV 3000 (1988)

This is mostly a renamed ETV 260, the only difference is that it has different video connector to support the CRT black & white monitor of ETV 2700.


ETV 4000s (1989)

ETV 400 is similar to ETV 500, but the base is not M19 PC, but M290. So with Intel 80286 CPU this wordprocessing system was running Windows 2.0 with the wordprocessing software of ETV 4000s. The standard printer was TH700 which is more or less a keyboard/floppydrive-less version of the ETV 210s.


ETV 5000 (1988)


CWP 1 (1988)


Editor 100 (1990)


Jetwriter 910 (1992)

By 1994, Olivetti stopped production of typewriters, as more and more users were transitioning to
personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or te ...
s.


See also

* Macchine per scrivere della Olivetti : the list of every model of Olivetti typewriter and related article on the Italian Wikipedia * Olivetti computers *
Olivetti S.p.A. Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part of ...


External links


Olivetti, storia di un'impresa
official site.
Il design dei prodotti Olivetti
the history of Olivetti design.


References

{{reflist Olivetti typewriters Articles containing video clips