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Thursday, November 1, 2012

Olivetti in the office

I've been sitting on this for awhile.  The bins get a lot of old desk calculators - mostly forgettable and with one paper roll arm missing.  Recently there was a Facit that printed but had no display.  I left it behind.  This one really struck me awhile back.  I had the feeling it would turn out to be by a design icon, and took a chance on it, leaving it at work until I could find a cord for it and make sure it works.

Last night I finally found a cord that fits this and now I have on my work desk a calculator designed by Mario Bellini.  The Olivetti LOGOS 41PD is from the mid-70's and looks it.  It's very striking as compared with the employer-provided TI-5130 now in my drawer.
I either need to find a new ribbon or renew the one it has.


 

5 comments:

  1. Neat looking calculator. It is the first Olivetti I've seen.
    I passed the factory daily where they and the Olivetti word processors (electric typewriters?) and PCs were made (as I understand & can't verfy). I've been trying for the past year to find out just exactly if anything was designed and what was manufactured in the Harrisburg plant. I think I became interested about 25 years too late, and I live too far away.

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  2. What a fascinating looking design. I somewhat regret that in this era we're inclined to abandon embellishments of design that gave things so much character once.

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  3. It's cool that you have that Bellini calculator. I considered buying a Divisumma myself.

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  4. In its day, that was probably a $200 calculator ... or more!!

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  5. It's drawing a lot of comments, one of which echoes Martin's!

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