The Hewlett-Packard Archive
(hparchive.com)41 points by joebig 12 hours ago
41 points by joebig 12 hours ago
The HP 185A oscilloscope[1], 500 MHz bandwidth, was $2000 in their 1960 catalog[2]. That would be $22,000 in today's dollars. (The brochure doesn't say MHz but uses MC meaning megacycles.) It would be fun to compare the specs to a cheap hobbyist level scope today.
[1] https://hparchive.com/Brochures/HP-185A-Brochure.pdf
[2] https://hparchive.com/Catalogs/HP-Catalog-1960-Short-Revised...
I’m sure someone has done this, but it would be interesting to study the overall tech landscape and compare which technology has sort of retained its value, depreciated, or increased in value—and how long those phases take. Even as far back as things like cast-iron printing presses and such. I mean also value in terms of usage not necessarily monetary.
The cycles we go through where a new tech supplants an old one, people thinking it’s the way of the future, and the old processes maybe forgotten for a while. Some might come back, others completely obsolescent. Still others the old tech might be superior to new—but more expensive (like old hard-wood window panes) and not sustainable.
I worked for almost 10 years at HP/HPE in the 2010s on embedded systems. I don't remember if it was a memo from Dave or Bill, but it was about never sacrificing quality for a deadline. Needless to say, we loved to dig up that old memo whenever PMs pushed too hard to get things released too early.
FYI they say "Computers and calculators are not the focus of this archive website."
I understand, but that’s a shame.
Way back, talking 1980 or so, my father got a newsletter cum magazine of sort from HP. Marketing material to be sure, but not just raw marketing. Some corporate organ that could easily been called something like “HP Today”.
But inside was, at the time, a science fiction story about handheld computers in the future. It was a fascinating bit of “snapshot in time” that I would enjoy seeing again.
While the HP computers and calculators were well documented and their design process was also frequently described in HP Journal or other HP publications, the most valuable HP publications were about their measurement instruments.
Many of the ancient service manuals for HP measurement instruments were much better for learning electronics engineering than most university manuals.
The actual HP archive, held by Agilent, went up in flames during a California wildfire:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/loss-of-hewlettpackard-archive-a-w...