--- title: Olivetti P6060 categories: - Computers types: - Professional Computer origins: - Italy years: - '1977' cpus: - two card Olivetti processor params: name: P6060 company: /companies/olivetti company_name: Olivetti specs: - label: NAME value: P6060 - label: MANUFACTURER value: Olivetti - label: TYPE value: Professional Computer - label: ORIGIN value: Italy - label: YEAR value: '1977' - label: BUILT IN LANGUAGE value: Special version of BASIC - label: KEYBOARD value: 97 keys with numeric keypad, arrow and function keys - label: CPU value: two card Olivetti processor - label: SPEED value: Unknown - label: RAM value: 40 KB up to 80 KB (32 KB reserved for the O.S. loaded from the FDD) - label: VRAM value: 80 characters buffer - label: ROM value: O.S. loader. Size unknown - label: TEXT MODES value: Plasma display. 1 line of 32 characters - label: GRAPHIC MODES value: None - label: COLORS value: Monochrome - label: SOUND value: No sound - label: SIZE / WEIGHT value: 60 (W) x 65 (D) x 21.5(H) cm. / 40 Kg. - label: I/O PORTS value: Serial IO ports (2) - RS232 - DMA interface - label: BUILT IN MEDIA value: One or two 8'' 250 KB floppy disc drives - label: OS value: Olivetti O.S. - label: POWER SUPPLY value: Built-in power supply unit - label: PERIPHERALS value: Optional 9 MB hard disk unit - label: PRICE value: From $7950 tabs: - photos - links - docs photos: - title: P6060 subtitle: '' text: |- Taken from the official Olivetti brochure Thanks to **Martin Willemsen** image: null - title: FDD UNIT subtitle: '' text: |- The single or dual 8" floppy drive unit had to be poped up to let the user insert disks. Courtesy of **Gerard Touitou** image: null - title: THERMAL PRINTER subtitle: '' text: |- Printing the source listing of a BASIC program. Courtesy of **Gerard Touitou** image: null - title: KEYBOARD subtitle: '' text: |- A very complete keyboard for the time. The keyboard buffer could store up to 80 typed characters. Courtesy of **Gerard Touitou** image: null links: - title: Olivetti P6060 url: http://www.z80ne.com/p6060/ text: A small site with photos of a P6060 restoration and downloadable manuals - title: Olivetti P6060 e P6066 url: http://www.robertocipriani.it/P6060 text: Small dedicated site with documentation and pictures docs: - title: P6066 - MANUALE GENERALE (ITALIAN) url: http://www.robertocipriani.it/P6060/P6066/Manuali%20di%20sistema.html cover: null text: |- [**P6066 - MANUALE GENERALE (ITALIAN)**](http://www.robertocipriani.it/P6060/P6066/Manuali%20di%20sistema.html)written by Olivetti  compiled/archived by Roberto Cipriani\  type of document : PDF\  size : 22,7 MB\  source : [Roberto Cipriani's personal page](http://www.robertocipriani.it) - title: P6060 - I/O CON PERIFERICHE ESTERNE (ITALIAN) url: http://www.robertocipriani.it/P6060/P6066/Manuali%20di%20sistema.html cover: null text: |- [**P6060 - I/O CON PERIFERICHE ESTERNE (ITALIAN)**](http://www.robertocipriani.it/P6060/P6066/Manuali%20di%20sistema.html)written by Olivetti  compiled/archived by Roberto Cipriani\  type of document : PDF\  size : 12 MB\  source : [Roberto Cipriani's personal page](http://www.robertocipriani.it) - title: P6060 - PRESTAZIONI GRAFICHE (ITALIAN) url: http://www.robertocipriani.it/P6060/P6066/Manuali%20di%20sistema.html cover: null text: |- [**P6060 - PRESTAZIONI GRAFICHE (ITALIAN)**](http://www.robertocipriani.it/P6060/P6066/Manuali%20di%20sistema.html)written by Olivetti  compiled/archived by Roberto Cipriani\  type of document : PDF\  size : 2,18 MB\  source : [Roberto Cipriani's personal page](http://www.robertocipriani.it) - title: OLIVETTI P6060 OFFICIAL BROCHURE url: http://www.1000bit.net/ad/bro/olivetti/p6060/p6060_bro.asp cover: null text: |- [**OLIVETTI P6060 OFFICIAL BROCHURE**](http://www.1000bit.net/ad/bro/olivetti/p6060/p6060_bro.asp)written by Olivetti  compiled/archived by Giorgio Morocutti.\  type of document : Unknown\  size : Unknown\  source : [www.1000bit.net](http://www.1000bit.ne) comments: - author: Jim Freiman (USA) date: Tuesday 6th April 2010 text: I worked for Olivetti and had one of the first 6060''s in the US. The manual was in Italian so I had ASU interpet it. One thing I remember was the interpetation had bites and nibbles which later became bytes and bits. Not many schools had experience with computers then. After learning the system I was sent to various regions to teach the 6060 and the basic language to other sales reps. Big uses were for Statistics, land surveying calculations, and computing auto contracts. - author: Wes (USA) date: Thursday 30th September 2010 text: I used a P6060 when I worked at Kimball. I used it for NC programming which at the time - about 1977-1981 was pretty cutting edge. I did all the music panel programming for pianos and organs - the thing that holds the music - which was usually a series of freeform curves. A great computer - unless the floppy drives got dirty!! A great machine with great memories. - author: Steve Oatway (UK) date: Monday 26th December 2005 text: I used to work for an Engineering company in the late 1970's and I used two of these machines to perform drive belt power calculations and stock control. I did my first real business programming on these before moving onto an M-PM based machine and then onto LSI Octopus machines. I remmember when we upgraded the memory on one of the Olivetti's and it cost £3000. There was a lunar lander game and also a golf game which we had, used loads of paper !!. - author: Peter Farrell-Vinay (UK) date: Monday 19th September 2016 text: Further to my last post, the software engineer who wrote the BASIC Compiler was Shefford Bryant. - author: Peter Farrell-Vinay (UK) date: Monday 19th September 2016 text: The BASIC interpreter was written by a team from Softech in the US. It was a two-stage interpreter with an intermediate language (because Olivetti insisted) which made execution slow. The use of heat-sensitive paper for output was added fun in that they grew dark with age ... - author: Jane Gilbert (United States) date: Friday 3rd April 2015 text: The Olivetti P6060 was the first computer I laid hands on in 1978 while I was still in high school. So many good memories and funny stories! It was a bad day when someone figured out how to reprogram the function keys and changed the "Save" key to "New." Some poor schmuck lost all of the new program he had just typed in. - author: Maurice (Hong Kong) date: Thursday 19th June 2014 text: I worked for Olivetti (Hong Kong) in 1977,immediately after graduation. Had the job of being technical support for the P6060 and P6040 minicomputers. Great fun but price and lack of memory did not lead to many sales. - author: rallemann (germany) date: Thursday 3rd April 2014 text: Is there still a working machine of this type? Who transcribed the error manuaul from italian to german? Great guy! - author: Ralf (Germany) date: Wednesday 12th June 2013 text: My first love... Was our one and only computer in school for a few years. Expanded later by Display (green monitor), printer (line mass printer), harddisk (9.5 mb) and mark carde reader (special build for our needs). Complete developement of individual school charts was done by a 12.000 line advanced BASIC program... Wow.... great machine... Would still like to have one operational for teaching purposes... - author: Piotr TRYBUS (POLAND/FRANCE) date: Wednesday 23rd January 2013 text: I work as developper and trainer for NC Programming system working on this computer. Big uses and nice trips as Olivetti sold it in Poland, URSS, Tchekoslovakia ... - author: Riccardo Ukmar (Italy) date: Friday 4th January 2013 text: It was 1980 and I was studying at High School ITIS Camillo Olivetti, in Ivrea. For math there was a wonderful lab with several P6060 (one for three/four students). Programming in Basic it was very simple to draw mathematical functions on the embedded thermal printer. It was a great experience, in1984 I joined Olivetti in the printer division (Olivetti Peripheral Equipment)… - author: Francesco Vecchio (Brescia/Italy) date: Friday 9th December 2011 text: |- I forgot to write that the architecture of the ALU of the CPU ("PUCE1/PUCE2") had introduced an innovative technique that consisted of variable-length microinstruction made $$8203$$$8203$possible by the use of nano istruction which replaced the matrix of control of the ALU. I think it was the first ALU adopted this technique that was later patented by Olivetti (Italy in the patent owner at the time was the company where you worked) Best regards and sorry for my English. Francesco Vecchio - author: Francesco Vecchio (Brescia/Italy) date: Friday 9th December 2011 text: |- I found this site and wish to leave a message because I am the father of two CPU boards p6060 "PUCE1/PUCE2" I designed at the R $ D Olivetti Via Camperio, 3 Milan in 1970. Lucio Lanza was my boss and the boss of bosses Louis Mercury. greetings Francesco Vecchio - author: Barry (United States) date: Tuesday 25th October 2011 text: I used to support payroll on one of those things. The biggest problem was that the programs would sometimes crash and fail to close the files. Then I had to jump in the car and drive to the client site to manually close it with a utility we had. Happy days... - author: ValerieMichelle (United States) date: Saturday 1st October 2011 text: I paid my way through college with my computer experience (1976) starting with a summer internship with the Social Security Administration. The project was to input all of the original social security cards from 1936. It was so cool, since I love history and I was part of an historic process for the Bureau of Records Management. It was also my initial realization that I was a geek at heart. - author: Jane (USA) date: Friday 12th August 2011 text: My high school had one of these back in the late 70s, and I first got to use it in 1978. We all had our own 8 inch floppies that we guarded with our lives, and I can remember HATING when the thermal paper roll got close to the end and our print-outs would be ridiculously curly. I still have some of those print-outs somewhere. - author: Maurizio Della Corte (Italy) date: Saturday 9th April 2011 text: I had a machine like this, and for that era was the best computer to work on. The only limitation was the small amount of system memory. - author: Romaine (Switzerland) date: Thursday 22nd April 2010 text: |- At Kyle:\ I''m based in Switzerland, and have a Olivetti P6060 for sale, please contact me by email rspennato@bluewin.ch. - author: Kyle (Cq) date: Wednesday 5th July 2006 text: This computer is so cool!!! I would Like To Know How To Buy One Of The Computers Like This!!!!! oc_id: 407 source: url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230608075036/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=407 date: '2023-06-08' --- The P6060 was a computer which looked like a typewriter. It had a built-in thermal printer (80 column, 80 character per second). This printer featured graphics supported by system software for scaling, framing, offsetting, axis drawing and alphanumeric labeling. The P6060 could be programmed with a special extended version of the BASIC language which featured random and sequential file handling and matrix operations. There were two models: the basic configuration with 8KB user RAM and a single FDD was priced at $7950 and the enhanced configuration with 16 KB user RAM and dual floppy disk cost $10,000 (and you think your computer was expensive!). --- **Chris Marshall** adds:\ I worked for Olivetti for many years and can confirm that the processor for this machine was a two card Olivetti designed processor. The cards were called PUCE1 and PUCE2. The same cards were used in the TC800 data terminal machine widely used by the UK banks during the late 1970's and early 1980's **Phil Williams's** memories:\ At the age of 10 I cut my computer teeth on a P6060. My father paid over 6,000 uk pounds for one ($10,000) - and this was 1977.\ Programs were stored on the 8-inch floppies and compiled when the "Run" button was pressed - you can see the 7 push buttons above the keypad. Display was a dot-matrix. Printer was 80 chars - and thermal, which meant costly to run. There was a driving game that involved printing out a track on the printer and you pressing the left or right button to keep your X on the road. Wasted oodles of paper!\ Olivetti did offer a VDU display card, which I think cost more than the 6000 pounds for the machine!\ I still have the P6060 - and 30 years on it still works!
We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system, please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.