Programma 101 Olivetti Pier Giorgio Perotto NASA HP9100 series US microprocessor personal computer integrated circuit
First produced in 1965, the Programma 101 was one of the first printing programmable calculators. It was designed and produced by the Italian company Olivetti with Pier Giorgio Perotto being the lead developer. The Olivetti Programma 101 was presented at the 1965 New York World's Fair after two years work (1962- 1964). Over 44,000 units were sold worldwide; in the US its cost at launch was $3,200. It was targeted to offices and scientific entities for their daily work because of its high computing capabilities in a small space with a relatively low cost; NASA was amongst its first owners. Built without integrated circuits or microprocessors, it used only transistors, resistors and condensers for its processing, the Programma 101 had features found in modern personal computers, such as memory, keyboard, printing unit, magnetic card reader/recorder, control and arithmetic unit. HP later copied the Programma 101 architecture for its HP9100 series.
