Between 1964 and 1967, Tomás Maldonado and Gui Bonsiepe developed a new alphabet character system for Olivetti, a manufacturer of typewriters and computers.

The brief was to develop a semiotic system that combined theory and practice. The new non-grammatical system for electronic data processing machines was to be created on the basis of an analysis of existing sign systems. Maldonado and Bonsiepe created a modular system consisting of light sockets, keys, symbol carriers and structures to support them.

Their alphabet consisted of two classes of characters: basic characters and determinatives.

The basic characters are comparable to nouns in a language. Functional units of a system acted as references for these. These include magnetic strips, lockers and disk storage. Their basic geometric symbol is the square and they have a two-dimensional character. Determinatives are comparable to adjectives and verbs. States and processes of the machines were taken as a reference. In other words, indications such as “ready”, “compare” or “functioning”. Their form is linear. There are syntactic and semantic relationships between the two classes of signs.

In order not to impair recognizability, a maximum of three characters were combined on an area of 14 mm. (kl)