The Mysterious Affair at Olivetti; IBM, the CIA, and the Cold War Conspiracy to Shut Down Production of the World's First Desktop Computer

Secrest, Meryle

ISBN 10: 0451493656 / ISBN 13: 9780451493651

Published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2019

About this Item

[12], 304, [4] pages. Illustrations. Signed by the author sticker on the front of the DJ. Signed by the author on the title page. Notes. Bibliography and Index. This is the never-before-told true account of the design and development of the first desktop computer by the world's most famous high-styled typewriter company, more than a decade before the arrival of the Osborne 1, the Apple-1, the first Intel microprocessor, and the IBM PC 5150. Secrest was born in Bath, England, and educated at the City of Bath Girls School, a city-run grammar school strong in the arts and Humanities. Her family emigrated to Canada, where she began her career as a journalist. She worked as women's editor for the Hamilton News in Ontario, Canada; shortly thereafter she was named "Most Promising Young Writer" by the Canadian Women's Press Club. After marrying an American, in 1964 she began writing for The Washington Post, doing profile interviews of notable personalities from Leonard Bernstein to Anaïs Nin. In 1975 she left the Post to write books full-time. Since then she has written a number of biographies; her subjects have included Frank Lloyd Wright, Lord Duveen, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Salvador Dalí, Kenneth Clark, Bernard Berenson, Romaine Brooks, Richard Rodgers, and Amedeo Modigliani. She has also published an autobiography entitled Shoot the Widow. In 2006, she received the Presidential National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush at the White House for illuminating the lives of great architects, artists and scholars of the 20th century. The human, business, design, engineering, cold war, and tech story of how the Olivetti company came to be, how it survived two world wars and brought a ravaged Italy back to life, how after it mastered the typewriter business with the famous "Olivetti touch," it entered the new, fierce electronics race; how its first desktop computer, the P101, came to be; how, within eighteen months, it had caught up with, and surpassed, IBM, the American giant that by then had become an arm of the American government, developing advanced weapon systems; Olivetti putting its own mainframe computer on the market with its desktop prototype, selling 40,000 units, including to NASA for its lunar landings. How Olivetti made inroads into the US market by taking control of Underwood of Hartford CT as an assembly plant for Olivetti's own typewriters and future miniaturized personal computers; how a week after Olivetti purchased Underwood, the US government filed an antitrust suit to try to stop it; how Adriano Olivetti, the legendary idealist, socialist, visionary, heir to the company founded by his father, built the company into a fantastical dynasty--factories, offices, satellite buildings spread over more than fifty acres--while on a train headed for Switzerland in 1960 for supposed meetings and then to Hartford, never arrived, dying suddenly of a heart attack at fifty-eight . . . how eighteen months later, his brilliant young engineer, who had assembled Olivetti's superb team of electronic engineers, was killed, as well, in a suspicious car crash, and how the Olivetti company and the P101 came to its insidious and shocking end. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing.

Seller Inventory # 83301

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Mysterious Affair at Olivetti; IBM, the CIA, and the Cold War Conspiracy to Shut Down Production of the World's First Desktop Computer
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, New York
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0451493656
• ISBN 13: 9780451493651
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very good
• Seller catalogs:
  • CIA

About this title

Synopsis

The never-before-told true account of the design and development of the first desktop computer by the world's most famous high-styled typewriter company, more than a decade before the arrival of the Osborne 1, the Apple 1, the first Intel microprocessor, and IBM's PC5150.

The human, business, design, engineering, cold war, and tech story of how the Olivetti company came to be, how it survived two world wars and brought a ravaged Italy back to life, how after it mastered the typewriter business with the famous "Olivetti touch," it entered the new, fierce electronics race; how its first desktop compter, the P101, came to be; how, within eighteen months, it had caught up with, and surpassed, IBM, the American giant that by then had become an arm of the American government, developing advanced weapon systems; Olivetti putting its own mainframe computer on the market with its desktop prototype, selling 40,000 units, including to NASA for its lunar landings. How Olivetti made inroads into the US market by taking control of Underwood of Hartford CT as an assembly plant for Olivetti's own typewriters and future miniaturized personal computers; how a week after Olivetti purchased Underwood, the US government filed an antitrust suit to try to stop it; how Adriano Olivetti, the legendary idealist, socialist, visionary, heir to the company founded by his father, built the company into a fantastical dynasty--factories, offices, satellite buildings spread over more than fifty acres--while on a train headed for Switzerland in 1960 for supposed meetings and then to Hartford, never arrived, dying suddenly of a heart attack at fifty-eight . . . how eighteen months later, his brilliant young engineer, who had assembled Olivetti's superb team of electronic engineers, was killed, as well, in a suspicious car crash, and how the Olivetti company and the P101 came to its insidious and shocking end.

About the Author

MERYLE SECREST was born and educated in Bath, England, and lives in Washington, DC. She is the author of twelve biographies and was awarded the 2006 Presidential National Humanities Medal.