| September 14 |  |
Editor says, what if the multimedia PC had arrived years earlier? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the September 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1995, on this day the struggling Italian computer manufacturer Olivetti released the Envision 400/P75, a full multimedia PC for the living room that would transform the home computing experience.
Release of the Olivetti EnvisionA combination of Italian style and engineering talent in Ivrea had overcome the considerable challenges in conjugating innovation with quality standards in order to produce a home computing appliance for non-computer savvy people. Designed to resemble a videocassette recorder, the Envision bucked the trend in a diminishing PC market by convincing late adopting consumers that computers were not impossibly hard to use.
The Envision shipped with a choice of two processors: one based on the Intel 486 DX4 100mhz processor and one based on the Intel Pentium P75 processor. It had an infrared keyboard and an internal modem, and it was compatible with audio CDs, CD-ROMs, Photo CDs and Video CDs. It came with preinstalled programs that would allow it work as a fax, an answering machine when connected to the telephone line. It also had three possible operating modes: simple mode (limited to the use of an infrared remote control to control the volume and the reproduction of photo, video or audio CDs); intermediate mode (with a simplified Windows shell replacement called Olipilot that gave access to a limited set of programs); advanced (the standard Windows 95 graphical user interface).
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Technology Source: Wikipedia Labels: Olivetti, Envision, Personal Computer, Multimedia, Living Room. Editor says, in authoring this post we have repurpose content from Wikipedia which reports ~ this project was a failure, and it might have been too advanced for its time. Packard Bell managed to successfully introduce a similar product in the U.S. but only some years later. The main problem of the company was its inability to conjugate innovation with the quality standards it had committed itself to, at a time when the margins on the PC market were diminishing as not only the market but also the number of PC clone producers grew. The company continued to develop personal computers until it sold its PC business in 1997.
~ I was in that industry from 1979 to 1988, and probably know more about its history than anyone. These so-called hybrid machines always failed. Always. Their various features were never as good as separate components purchased separately (i was once lent a PC that had a built-in dot-matrix printer, of all things.) After 1983, the market was driven by cost and compatibility, period. Remember, until the mid-1990s, when the internet became widely available, the market was all but exclusively male. They were mostly interested in work. Cool design features didn't impress them.
~ The PC revolution coming earlier would be interesting in a lot of ways.
~ Wonder if it could tie into radio-waves and include a beeper.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
