PIERGIORGIO PEROTTO
Inventor of the personale computer Programma 101####
|--> Torino Italy 24-12-1930
-->| Genova Italy 23-01-2002
History:
In 1948 he enrolled in engineering at the Polytechnic of Turin, where he graduated in 1955 and began working as a researcher. He taught for many years at the Polytechnic University of Turin and is the author of numerous books and articles on strategy, business organization and computer science. For two years, from 1955 to 1957, he worked at Fiat. In April 1957 he moved to Olivetti#### to work in the Barbaricina Electronic Research Laboratory in Pisa. This laboratory, the result of an agreement between the University of Pisa and the Ivrea-based company, is home to a group of researchers led by engineer Mario Tchou with the aim of developing the first Italian electronic calculators.
In 1964 Olivetti decided to sell the electronics sector to General Electric, a fact disputed, among others, by Perotto. The American company did not like the young engineer's remonstrances and returned him to Olivetti shortly after. Perotto thus continued his research in the electronic field in Borgolombardo near Milan, where the Pisa laboratory was transferred. His idea is to create a line of small office products, based on electronic technologies. This is hard to imagine in the sixties when the only computers that existed were large, expensive and used exclusively in data centers! Yet in 1964 he came to design the first desktop electronic calculator, the Programma 101####, essentially the first personal computer.
The "Perottina", so named after its inventor, was presented in October 1965 at the BEMA show in New York, a fair for office products. The P101 was an immediate success with the public and the American press. In 1966 alone, 2000 units were produced. Even NASA buys some of them. From 1967 to 1978 Perotto was the general manager of Olivetti's Research and Development department. In this position, he led the company's transformation from mechanical to electronic. In 1980 Elea was founded, a management school and future training and consulting company owned by the Olivetti Group: Perotto was its founder, president and CEO until 1993.
In 1991, several years later, the Italian Association of Industrial Designers awarded him the Leonardo da Vinci International Prize for the creation of the P101 and, in 1978, of its evolution, the Et101, which had a more elaborate video writing system. After more than thirty years, in 1993, he left Olivetti. In 1994 he became the vice-president of Sogea (School of Organization and Business Management) in Genoa. In 1995 he became president of Finsa Consulting, a Genoese management and IT consulting company. He held both positions until his death. On 23 January 2002 he died in Genoa at the age of 71 due to cancer.
Fonti:
http://www.piergiorgioperotto.it/
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_Giorgio_Perotto
http://www.torinoscienza.it/personaggi
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Piergiorgio Perotto |
