In August 1954 Adriano Olivetti meets Mario Tchou in New York and hires him. The exact date of the fateful meeting is not known, none of the many biographies dedicated to the great Olivetti has been able to identify it and not even the Olivetti Archives are able to pull it out. But we know that it was one of the most important meetings in the history of electronics in Italy. The one thanks to which the first Italian computer was born.
Among the many memories of Mario Tchou, one of the most complete is the one on the storiainformatica website, which starts from the beginning.
“We are in the years of the great war. The young Yin Tchou leaves China, headed for Italy in search of machinery to produce silk. But his fate changed: in 1918 he began working at the Chinese embassy in Italy. In 1921 he was joined in Rome by his wife Evelyn Wauang. In 1922 Maria was born; Mario arrives on June 26, 1924, followed, in 1926, by Memè … The young Tchou are integrated into the Roman reality: they study successfully, attend music courses and play sports. The garden of their house is frequented by young people who will leave their mark on the life of our country … In 1942 Mario Tchou graduated from classical high school at the Liceo ginnasio Torquato Tasso. On 3 October of the same year he obtains the registration book – matriculation n. 12030 – in the engineering course at the Royal University of Rome. The young Tchou passed the first three years of Industrial Engineering (Electrotechnical section) with excellent results. The father insists that he continue his studies in the United States e in 1945, after winning a scholarship, he left for Washington. A curriculum vitae drawn up by Tchou himself at the age of 30 allows us to accurately reconstruct his scientific and professional career. In 1947 he obtained a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Catholic University of America. In the same year he moved to New York, where he began teaching at Manhattan College, attended by many Italian Americans. In 1949 he obtained a Master of Science from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn with an experimental thesis entitled “Ultrasonic Diffraction”. From 1950 he became consultant for the «television equipment and electronic components» sector of the law firm Ostrolenk Faber, specialized in the copyright sector. In 1949 he married in New York (with Mariangela Siracusa, who was studying Political Science in New York thanks to a scholarship) … In 1952 Columbia University confers to Mario Tchou the position of assistant professor in Electronic Engineering. In a short time Tchou becomes director of the prestigious Marcellus Hartley Laboratory, responsible for research in the field of electrical and electronic engineering. In 1954 he could introduce himself as an expert engineer in “digital control system including electronic and electromechanical computers” “.
At this point it happens historic meeting with Adriano Olivetti which convinces him to return to Italy and take the lead of the newborn laboratory in Barbaricina, near Pisa, with which Olivetti for a few years showed the world the way to the future.
The end is known, and tragic. A few months ago, in a beautiful memory on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the mysterious death of Tchou (which actually falls on November 9th), Wired wrote that “it was in New York that in 1954 Tchou met Adriano Olivetti. Tchou had been pointed out to the Ivrea entrepreneur by Enrico Fermi, who had been trying for some years to persuade Olivetti to invest in electronics. Tchou could therefore be the right person to fill the role of director for the new Olivetti Electronic Research Laboratory. The engineer showed up to sit the interview at the American headquarters of Olivetti, but the questions that the industrialist asked him did not concern technology. Tchou said that during the interview, Olivetti seemed more interested in learning about social and relational aspects rather than technical ones. This impressed him positively. So Tchou decided to accept the job offer and to return to Italy, even for family reasons “.
The circumstance of Enrico Fermi’s “presentation”, however fascinating, does not seem to be supported by evidence. In the book “ELEA 9003. History of the first Italian electronic calculator”, Maurizio Gazzari, who is a true authority on the subject, tells a somewhat different story. Here is the key piece. “In addition to Dino, Roberto Olivetti, Adriano’s son, arrives in 1954, at the age of 26, closely following the events of the New Canaan laboratory. In the summer of that year, together with his father and uncle, Roberto discusses the project of the electronic calculator. Together they make the decision to keep the New Canaan laboratory running, if only for the relationships interwoven with the American academic and industrial world. But they also decide to resume following an Italian road. To do this, however, you need an expert, someone who is already aware of the basics and what is happening in the world, starting with the United States. The natural candidate appears Michele Canepa, but his return to Italy would have involved the reorganization or even the closure of New Canaan. The suggestion, which will prove to be fundamental for the development of the entire story that we narrate here, comes from Guglielmo Negri, collaborator at the Foreign Trade Office of the Olivetti headquarters in Rome. Blacks suggests Adriano to meet a former schoolmate of his from the time of the Liceo Tasso in Rome, a multifaceted man, with the right skills and, above all, a person who was anything but provincial: a cosmopolitan, one would say now. Negri suggests that Adriano know and evaluate the engineer and professor at Columbia University, Mario Tchou ”.
Whoever did it the prompter of the historic meeting, “It is not surprising” (we always quote Gazzarri) “that Adriano Olivetti immediately sees in him a person capable of making his company take that leap towards the future that he has imagined for almost five years now”.
Born we’ll talk about Mario Tchou, in this Almanac.
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