Comment by zrobotics
Ask a greybeard electrical engineer, at one time they were making the top grade test and measurement equipment. Older HP gear still brings a premium compared to other vendors, but we're talking stuff made before 2000-ish. They absolutely did cutting edge work and built rock solid gear, but that division has been split off twice into different companies. And keysight gear (the current successor) isn't anywhere near as great as the older stuff.
You aren't wrong. 70s and 80s HP scientific gear was the gold standard - often because it was pioneered into existence.
I was recently fixing a WinNT 4.0 box, attached to a daily-used 30yo HP Spectrophotometer. The latter needed no service.