Lettera 32 - Part 2 of QWERTY

Foto: Divulgação/Internet

Aside from leaving home for the first time ever, alone as well, and going to the another continent altogether, going to college in the US was going to be a constant discovery for a long time to come. The only reason it was less traumatic was because there was no language barrier with English, American English to be precise. This was not the typical American ritual of parents leaving their grown up kid at college after having packed the family car with any and everything that could be useful, real or not. There was no such luxury, and while I had no expectation, indeed it was literally leaving home with just a suitcase for a very long journey and time away. Having a brother who had done the same years earlier, I suppose it just instilled a sense of security that is was doable and fun. Today kids are already packed with gadgets and are really just virtually away given the internet accessibility. I did have a HP handheld calculator and it was the only thing notable that held any semblance of technology at the time. Such was the state of affairs as I made my way as a starting freshman of the class'80 at Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), in Troy, New York.

If you missed it, there is a Part 1 - The Bell

The 2nd Suitcase

Dad with a little foresight did arrange for me to have something called an unaccompanied luggage sent by air freight at a special rate which was basically another suitcase that I would clear customs two weeks after arriving at destination. In that suitcase was something that at the time for me had no particular value other than being a portable typewriter. I wasn't a writer and really didn't look forward to any extensive typing, I just couldn't envision what could be so compelling. The typewriter was an Olivetti Lettera 32 whose design is now regarded as a classic and sits in the museum of modern art, a testament to Italian design. Little did I know then but the key placements are the equivalent of today's QWERTY for Italian. It would remain with me for the next six years as I got my bachelor and masters degrees although I have a hard time remembering if I really used it for any real coursework as I didn't have a thesis in the traditional sense.

The Stars Align

My freshman year gave me many new experiences and surprises, but things really ramped up my sophomore year as I took a chance with college life. With a convergence of circumstances, I was asked to fill in as secretary for Union Programming and Activities Committee (UPAC) which is part of the RPI student body as student government is known. I say circumstances because at the time I had no idea what secretary meant in this context other than what a traditional secretary does. Even more so what on earth was this UPAC? It kind of sounded important but I had no clue to its purpose and where it fitted in the scheme of things. I was probably told or explained certain things but I imagined I nodded, heard, but hardly understood the real significance.

RPI Student Union building

UPAC and the Rensselaer Union

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A short digression is useful to understand how this circumstance most certainly changed the trajectory of how I would end up later in life professionally.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York was established in 1824 with a student body that is over 6000+ with over 20% from outside of the USA. It has a well established and highly regarded engineering school. Student life, however, is not only the academic side, but also what happens as students live on campus as part of the US college tradition. Most universities have organizations on campus that provide these other aspects. RPI is somewhat unique because while students on their tuition bill see different charges, there is one specifically labeled "Union". What it doesn't indicate is that funds received for that label go directly to the Student Union, where the RPI Student Union exists as a completely separate and independent entity. Clearly its charter binds it to the Institute so that it's purpose and services are there for the students to complement the academic life. What isn't so appreciated by many students is that the RPI Union is completely under the responsibility of the students themselves. It is therefore the student body as whole that elects and names the President of the RPI Student Union and also the 15-20 students to be on the Executive Board. The Executive Board in many ways is like a combined CEO and CFO managing the Student Union budget year to year.

UPAC is a dedicated group of students who put on several large programming events throughout the school year for the students. These are planned well in advance, are frequently in the student union, and usually feature comedians, concert artists, or other forms of general entertainment. This committee directly serves the student body and aims to allow them a positive and enjoyable environment to supplement the college experience! We are also the overarching committee which oversees the subcommittees which focus on Concerts, Comedy, Cinema, GM Week, and Winter Carnival.

Mission Statement

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UPAC is one of the operational "division" responsible for all types of extracurricular activities

and regular offerings through out the academic year. UPAC has one of the most significant portion of the overall budget. As an organizational division it has its own chair or head and needs to meet regularly from an operational perspective. The various departments or committees as they are known make up the division. The secretary's role at the time was to ensure the smooth running of these operational meetings, and one of the tasks was to provide the minutes as part of the process. It may sound trivial in today's context but then things were done differently. I only had paper and pen to take notes. I had to learn the terms and vocabulary used in this particular context. I had to know the right key points to have the right level of detail.

I was asked by a dorm mate if I'd be willing to help on short notice as the previous secretary had suddenly left. As my dorm mate had become a good friend I trusted him. If he believed in me, why not. Clearly I was also a surprise to the various committee chairs and I could sense they were really doubtful if I could do the job on short notice. Guess when you're thrown into the water you learn to swim quickly, or at least in my case to tread to avoid drowning while figuring out what to do. I did have one trick up my sleeve that nobody really knew. I could type well and quickly. The office also had an IBM Selectric which also piqued my curiosity.

So the minutes actually got typed up pretty quickly but there was another problem that I hadn't thought about. Photocopy machines were more of a luxury then and there were none around. I was told they just mimeo'd stuff and I sort of said huh?

Copy, Copies, and Copies

Well there is a technology called mimeography. You basically write on a special carbon type paper film, essentially a stencil. You then fed it thru a mimeograph machine which inked white paper with what you had written. You could do about 100 copies before the master became useless. In this case I just had to type the master and run it thru. It was like being in a print shop. I had to be very careful to avoid getting ink all over the place, and myself. Lo and behold I manage to do all this by the following afternoon and had copies to everyone before 24 hours were up. I guess that was a response to their expectation and in some ways my destiny was sealed. I became part of UPAC for the rest of my years at RPI and in fact after a month or so as secretary I was asked if I would be the new chair of the Sound Committee. I accepted and got on the best ride of my life.

JBL the Golden Age

It was in this role that I learned everything that would be useful in my professional life and I would have never picked up in any of my classes as important they may have sounded. I learned what responsibility with accountability meant. Not just one or the other but together. I wrote contracts and my signature was on them. I had to have a lawyer's mindset to get he contractual language right and for them to afford us the protection we needed.

The Sound Committee's job was to provide sound reinforcement for concert scheduled in the various programs on weekends and certain days of the week. This took various forms. The primary one was a response to musician or band's tech rider which basically was a request and agrement of sound services. It could be as simple as making certain equipment available to also mixing and producing the sound reinforcement (musician would just come in and play). It could also take the form of a partial rental to other organizations. Either way contractual language was involved. It was team of regular members and occasional helpers. We worked as a team. We had to learn our roles. We had to become adept at doing several technical activities quickly, efficiently, and precisely. I learned to plan and architect how a tech rider requirements would be met by our systems, and to communicate to everyone precise instructions. I had to monitor and verify everything on the fly. When problems were found, decisions had to be made. Yes it was engineering school, but these activities taught me choices had to be made even in the absence of complete data.

A Mentor

Rick Hartt, Class'70, joined the Rensselaer Union as Director of Student Activities in 1978 just as I started this adventure. Rick became a fine friend in my years at RPI. Rick brought an entirely new dimension to my life as well extending to me the warmest feeling of family together with his wife, Julie. Somehow interspersed with the UPAC activities and discussions, he became a de facto mentor and counselor, all wrapped in one. He gave me the confidence to go outside my comfort zone and find a new equilibrium. In 1983 Rick went on to become the Director of the Rensselaer Union, and in one of the longest tenure, truly was the heart and soul transforming the Union for future generations.

Every Cent

Scope, responsibilities, payment, penalties, odds and ends. The other side of the coin was that the equipment we had just didn't magically appear. It had to be acquired and maintained. We had to plan and prepare financially with the latter being the budget to define that we had to request to he Rensselaer Union Executive Board and obtain approval. No easy task. It was basically learning to do capital expenditure and operating expense and how to plan budgets.The key was to make a convincing case to the Board for approval and release. The type of equipment and consequently the capital level rose with the level of musicians we wanted to have on campus. If we didn't have the equipment we would need to rent for the event and this was an operational cost. It became an exercise to convince the Board to opt for investment rather that the burden of expense.

A Bit of Skunkworks

My roommate, Tony DiBianca, was also the co-chair and together we would discuss plans for equipment at all odd hours as we saw fit. Those were the days of pencil and paper, and most importantly the napkins on which ideas were hatched. We had a bunkbed, something of a rarity for the campus dorms, but it gave us much more precious space in the rooms we had. The ideas continued to flow, whether top bunk to bottom bunk or vice versa.

Tony and I worked numerous concerts on campus, small, large, and anything in between, from the quiet club-like venues to the louder concerts with bands. It was a constant lugging of equipment, setup, teardown, cycling from one night to the next. Sometimes there were technical difficulties but for the most part our quality equipment didn't let us down. Sometimes we had to move some of the equipment to different locations on campus and luckily Tony had our own version of the Ghostbuster mobile, a 1996 New Yorker Town & Country. It was truly one heavy piece of sheet metal. While it could move, it didn't stop easily nor could you turn it on dime. Still it had the room for what we needed to do.

Tony and I were like in a symbiotic team doing things seamlessly and simple words would suffice to get us going on choices. We never got into each other's way, indeed quite the opposite. One night with a band in concert, the band leader started to sing, but nothing was heard. Tony and I were at the live mixing deck and we looked at each other. Not a single word was uttered, but we shifted gears instantly and we both ran to our pile of microphone cables. Those were the analog days and microphones only worked with cables, nothing was wireless. A pile of cable isn't the right description. We had an assortment of cable run lengths, all of them coiled and ready to go. We went instinctively to a cable coil of the length we needed, not even bothering to check. Tony took one end and I took the other. He ran back to the mixing desk while I ran to the stage. As he reached the mixing desk he unplugged the old cable running to the singer's mic and swapped in the new cable. At the same precise moment I had managed to unplug the other end of the cable from the mic the singer had, and instantly plugged in the end of the new cable. The singer resumed singing and every worked as if nothing ever happened.

Terminals

The Olivetti Lettera 32 remained in its case for the most part. Half way through the college years the evolution of computing picked up pace. Starting out as a freshman it was still punch cards, but by the time sophomore year arrived, various types of terminals made their debut on campus. By the time I was working towards my MBA, IBM's now famous 3270 terminals, the original green screens, had become the mainstay. In the same period, with these terminals, one of the more interesting use was producing written material using the Generalized Markup Language (GML) which introduced typesetting outside of the realm of traditional print shops. I found it fascinating as it gave me the possibility to explore page layouts albeit in rather rudimentary form if compared to today's possibilities. Indeed that I could simply apply my typing skills to the terminal to input written material seem such a natural use and posed no particular burden.

As I looked around there were some folks that looked like they were trying to figure out how to use the keyboard, letter by letter, one key at a time. It may have crossed my mind that it was really their fault for not taking typing classes back in high school, but perhaps I just concluded that they could improve over time. Today, the keyboard's virtual incarnation on mobile phones and tablet has an integrated word completion assistance which becomes another skill to acquire if the keyboard is to be used effectively. Look at all the kids and you see them churning out words and phrases at an impossible speed if you were to actual input the words letter by letter. The thumbs are the equivalent of all fingers moving effortlessly between inputing a letter to making the right word completion selection, and to erase or backspace as necessary for a correction or re-selection. It is the most recent evolution of QWERTY as an input method.

The Last Journey

But back to where we were. After 6 years the Olivetti Lettera 32 was packed up again to make its final move, a journey half way around the world to its last destination - Bangkok. It was never to be used again. It just sat there in its light blue case. If things haven't change for the past 40 years, it's probably still in the same spot on a storage shelf in a storage area. It's there with a whole bunch of paraphernalia collected over the years as their usefulness ended, but not thrown out so long as the storage shelf had room. Ironically the same storage space holds another Olivetti Lettera 32, but of an earlier model, one from the 60s. Both are instantly recognizable. Both were acquired through the same channel in Rome.

Design

The original design was introduced with the Olivetti Lettera 22 and it is part of New York Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) permanent collection. The Olivetti Lettera 32 was quite popular worldwide and with significant production numbers is unlikely to become a valuable collector's item, but there are exception. Noteworthy is the one sold at Christie for $245,250 as authenticated by American well known author, Cormac McCarthy, that he typed all his manuscripts on it.

Years on when I began to develop a more focused interest in design and architecture, the Olivetti Lettera 32 would come to mind every now and then, reminding me that Italian design holds a special space in the history and evolution of industrial design.

..continued in Part 3