Programma Q - An Olivetti Programma 101 Emulator

Arduino® UNO™ Q 2GB

Arduino App Lab

Arduino® UNO™ Q 4GB

Modulino™ Buzzer

<html><body><h3>Programma Q - An Olivetti Programma 101 Emulator</h3>A faithful web-based emulator of the Olivetti Programma 101, the 1965 programmable desktop calculator that predates the personal computer by a decade. Built entirely on Arduino App Bricks, with keyboard-click sound effects on a physical Modulino Buzzer and an animated Elea 9000 logo on the UNO Q's onboard LED matrix. <figure><img src="https://projects.arduinocontent.cc/a04f1b92-0353-44b4-9991-9e38955e584d.png"/><figcaption>Programma Q</figcaption></figure>The story The Programma 101 ("Perottina") had no operating system, no monitor, and no keyboard shortcuts — just a keyboard, a small built-in printer, and program "cards" the size of a credit card. Despite that, it was Turing-complete and usable by non-specialists, qualities that later defined the personal computer. It became famous for reasons Olivetti never advertised: NASA reportedly used one to cross-check Apollo 11's lunar-module descent arithmetic, and the U.S. Air Force used them for artillery calculations in Vietnam. <figure><img src="https://projects.arduinocontent.cc/8ff43787-8a38-46eb-b27a-000d2bcb73b9.jpg"/><figcaption>The original Olivetti Programma 101 (Source: Wikipedia)</figcaption></figure>There's also a design lineage worth telling: Olivetti was headquartered in Ivrea, Italy, a town whose Olivetti-era architecture is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the early 2000s, that same town was home to the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea — where Massimo Banzi and collaborators built the first Arduino boards in 2005. This project runs the ghost of a 1965 Olivetti calculator on a 2020s Arduino board, closing that loop in the town where both started. What it does - A skeuomorphic control panel in the browser mirrors the real machine's keyboard, tape, and register readouts. - Full calculator-mode arithmetic against the A (accumulator) register, plus six general-purpose registers (B–F, M) that can be split into half-capacity pairs, exactly like the original. - Record, save, load, upload, and download program cards in a plain-text format — including four worked examples (Fibonacci sequence, compound interest, the Pythagorean theorem, and lunar descent velocity) with full setup walkthroughs. - An AI Operator that takes a natural-language request (e.g. "compute 12 times 7") and drives it to completion by pressing real keys — it can make a recoverable mistake like a human operator, but it can never fabricate a result that bypasses the emulator's real arithmetic. - An AI Assistant that explains blocked errors and saved programs in plain English on request. - Keyboard-click, error, and printer-chatter sound effects on a physical Modulino Buzzer, and a pixel-by-pixel "rebuild" animation of the Elea 9000 logo on the onboard LED matrix every time a calculation runs. - Both AI features and the hardware effects degrade gracefully (disabled, silent) if their Brick or MCU peripheral isn't attached. Hardware used <ol><li>Arduino UNO Q (2GB or 4GB) </li><li>Modulino Buzzer (optional — for sound effects) </li></ol> Software / Arduino App Bricks used <ol><li>WebUI: serves the browser control panel over Socket.IO </li><li>Database - SQL: persists saved program cards </li><li>LLM: powers the AI Operator and AI Assistant </li><li>Bridge: A small always-on MCU sketch drives the buzzer and LED matrix, decoupled from all Programma 101 emulation logic </li></ol> How it works The Linux side runs a clean-room reimplementation of the Programma 101's documented register model, instruction set, and card forma, not derived from any existing emulator. Every keystroke synchronously advances the emulated machine one step and the full state (registers, tape, error flags, loaded card) broadcasts back to the browser. The paired microcontroller only ever receives a tone or an LED-matrix mode over a Bridge RPC and renders it as a pure function of time, so the animation and sound never block on the Linux side. <figure><img src="https://projects.arduinocontent.cc/86109e86-56d2-407e-a863-9b5e807d57cb.png"/><figcaption>Programma Q inside Arduino App Lab</figcaption></figure>Getting Started Deploy with the Arduino App CLI like any other App Brick bundle. Once running, open ` http://&lt;device-ip&gt;:7000/ ` in a browser — no extra setup needed, though attaching a Modulino Buzzer adds the sound effects. User guide - Basic arithmetic: type digits on the numeric keypad, then press an operation key (`+`, `−`, `×`, `÷`, `√`...) to run it against the A register. Press `◇` to print the result to the tape, `✳` to clear a register, and `S` to acknowledge an error or stop a run. - Using a register: press one of `F`, `E`, `D`, `C`, `M`, `B` before an operation key to use that register as the operand instead of the typed entry. - Running a saved card: click a title in the CARDS list to load it, then press one of the start keys `V` / `W` / `Y` / `Z`. If the card needs starting values it can't set itself, a hint appears above the start keys with the exact keys to press first. - Recording your own program: press `REC`, then key in digits and operators as normal — they're recorded instead of executed. Mark jump targets with `V=1` / `W=2` / `Y=3` / `Z=4`, then give it a title and press `SAVE AS CARD`. - AI Operator: type a request like "compute 12 times 7" into the side panel and press `RUN` — it presses the real keys for you and shows its trace. - AI Assistant: click the `?` next to an error or a saved card for a plain-English explanation. Learn More Full source, architecture notes, and setup walkthroughs for each worked example card avaialble on GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/ardumajonchi/progq/">https://github.com/ardumajonchi/progq/ </a> License Licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL-2.0). </body></html>

Programma Q - An Olivetti Programma 101 Emulator

A web-based emulator of the Olivetti Programma 101, the first personal computer ever brought to market in 1965. Built on Arduino App Lab, using Bricks (WebUI, Database, LLM) with keyboard-click sound effects on a physical Modulino Buzzer (optional) and animation on the UNO Q's onboard LED matrix.