This paper uses the case of ELEA 9000, the first Olivetti computer series, to demonstrate the close relationship between industrial design, semiotics, ergonomics and the history of computing. A focus on the Olivetti ELEA series invites scholars to reconsider the history of computer interface design well before the emergence of HCI as a widely recognized field of research. The console and racks of the mainframe computer were designed in Italy by architect Ettore Sottsass Jr. (1917–2007) along with Dutch designer Andries van Onck (1928–2018) at the end of the 1950s. Aiming to launch the ELEA computer on the international market, Olivetti developed the idea of a visual language for human–computer interaction that could be learned by any operator, regardless of their native language. Sottsass and Olivetti assigned the task of designing this sign system to Tomás Maldonado (1922–2018), director of the Hochschule für Gestaltung design school in Ulm, Germany. Together with Gui Bonsiepe (b. 1934), Maldonado designed a visual language that incorporated grammatical and syntactic reasoning. Later discarded, the sign system for ELEA prefigured the contemporary use of icons in computer interfaces.

中文翻译：

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Olivetti ELEA 标志系统：HCI 出现之前的接口

本文以第一款 Olivetti 计算机系列 ELEA 9000 为例，展示了工业设计、符号学、人体工程学和计算历史之间的密切关系。Olivetti ELEA 系列的焦点邀请学者们重新思考在 HCI 作为广泛认可的研究领域出现之前计算机界面设计的历史。大型计算机的控制台和机架由建筑师 Ettore Sottsass Jr. (1917–2007) 和荷兰设计师 Andries van Onck (1928–2018) 于 1950 年代末在意大利设计。为了在国际市场上推出 ELEA 计算机，Olivetti 开发了一种用于人机交互的视觉语言的想法，任何操作员都可以学习，无论他们的母语如何。Sottsass 和 Olivetti 将设计这个标志系统的任务分配给了德国乌尔姆的 Hochschule für Gestaltung 设计学院院长 Tomás Maldonado（1922-2018 年）。马尔多纳多与 Gui Bonsiepe (b. 1934) 一起设计了一种结合了语法和句法推理的视觉语言。后来被抛弃的 ELEA 标志系统预示着当代在计算机界面中使用图标。