Have to make this reminder periodically: "pica" is not a font nor a typeface; it is not a design or shape of letters---pica is a pitch, ten characters to the inch. It is misleading to call a font "pica" and it doesn't really convey any information beyond the pitch. To talk about a font, use its real name as specified by the manufacturer if you can find out what that is, or, as most people intend, just refer to its font category: roman (serif); sans serif or its variant, the squared-off techno; script (incorrectly, cursive); italic; or blackletter (Olde English, old German, very rare). I'm betting that when you say "normal Pica" here, you are referring to a roman font.

"elite" is 12 character per inch.

You often see these two words within the real names of fonts, but they are not actual names of fonts.

Sorry---after all that, I don't know what Olivetti called their techno font, and they may even have had several versions of it. Usually a maker would not name its typewriter models for their font. Any particular model would be available with a choice of fonts and you can only tell what it has by looking at the slugs or the output.

I would also argue that when it comes to what a typewriter is equipped with, we are talking about a typeface and not a font.

puleddu wrote:

This is great information, M. Höhne. 
I realise my experience is extremely limited and all the information I could find online, refer to Pica, or Elite as a font. 
Thanks for sharing!

Agreed, but that's because most of the chatter online is by newbies who learn a little bit and then think they have mastered all there is to know---no context, no detail, no nuance, no perspective. Being able to toss off some in-group terms is all they need.

I wouldn't make this such a crusade except that it is so very misleading. It is important to know a typewriter's pitch because some strongly prefer one or the other, but then you have people talking about a pica font (they mean roman) without noticing that the typewriter in question is elite pitch, all because they don't know their terms. Happens a lot.

OTOH, somebody might be looking for a typewriter with Prestige or Diplomat or Courier---all roman fonts and all available on elite or pica machines---but the advertiser only calls it Pica because he thinks that's the name for roman in general.

Thanks for the chance to clarify

Going back to the original question, this is how my Valentine S writes:



Spanish keyboard layout and 10 CPI (pica, then), but as for the typeface, that´s a different story. I´d say this is what most Olivettis came with from the Barcelona plant according to a former worker. In fact, he referrred to the different pitches as Pica and Elite, never mentioning the CPI since here we don´t use inches at all except for TV screens. Even in that case most people don´t have a clue on how many centimetres is an inch.

What is a bit sad is how dull Olivetti became with typefaces in Barcelona. Apart from this one and techno, there´s not really much else. I´d say there are several script typewriters floating around, but they´re really scarce.