Olivetti Summa 19

Olivetti Summa 19 (SN: 2308502; Bild: Haertel)

1 Maschinendaten

2 Beschreibung

In 1970, Natale Capellaro was retired since few years. Following a former Antares employee, Olivetti acquired rights on Antares Lei's tecnology and added a new beautiful case to produce Summa-19. Actually, mechanical devices are identical and Lei was introduced one year before Summa-19.

A 1983 Olivetti book (Design Process Olivetti 1908-1983) reports that ''Summa-19, first low-cost calculating-machine, has an all-plastic body. The plastic is not of high quality, nor is it particularly durable". Actually such a machine was intended to contrast new electronic calculators offering a "pop", nice and cheap mechanical adding machine. General quality level is far lower that usual Olivetti standards. In particular printing device and keyboard had to be often replaced.

3 Varianten

Summa 19-R......: Produced since 1971 and having a reduced capacity (8x9)

Also the reduced version "Summa-19-R" is intended to offer an always cheaper machine to the wider market possible.

This machine has been distributed also under different "private labels": in US by Sears, in Germany by Quelle, ... These labels can differ from name andr color. Original Olivetti machines was green and black (first version) or white and black (R version), Quelle machines was yellow and black, ...

4 Bilder

Commercial offer (1970)

Elettrosumma 19 (BZB 1970)

5 Literatur

• Silmo 2008
• Auszug Firmenbroschüre : Prodotti Olivetti 1908-1977

6 Patente

7 Weblinks

8 Allgemeine Anmerkungen

Price in 1970 was 60.000 ITL, in this ad it's offered to buy it paying monthly 5.200 ITL.