4 ms·

You'd have to go back to the early-mid 90s for bulletproof printers that never complained and did not require (or even encourage) installation of horrible softw

by sk5t 8y ago

You'd have to go back to the early-mid 90s for bulletproof printers that never complained and did not require (or even encourage) installation of horrible software. HP also made good oscilloscopes, gas chromatographs, and the like, but of course those weren't shiny enough to keep on making.

technobabble 8y ago
Technically the HP division for oscilloscopes and ee equipment still lives on via Siglent/Agilent/whatever name they're calling it now. Does anybody know why their test instruments division was spun off in the 90's? Was it to cut down on bureaucracy, or to "reinvent" the company for the digital age, or something else?
- guest2143 8y ago
  Spinning it off was part of the deal with Carly coming on board. :/
- reportingsjr 8y ago
  Siglent is a Chinese test equipment company. Agilent is HP's life science division (test equipment for biology folks) and the electronic test equipment division is now called keysight. As far as I'm aware these two were spun out since the growth wasn't as good as the consumer electronics division.
  - tannhaeuser 8y ago
    Or to save the crown jewels from going under with HP the IT conglomerate. I guess a mature IT and consumer mass market requires different corporate structure, scale, and growth compared to ee and chem lab equipment.
- mrpippy 8y ago
  The test equipment and medical/chemical diagnostics business was spun off into Agilent in 1999, and Agilent then spun out the test equipment a few years ago. Keysight Technologies is now where they live on.
- bsder 8y ago
  > Does anybody know why their test instruments division was spun off in the 90's? Profit, but no growth. All the manufacturers of test equipment have the same issues: the number of people who need test equipment is effectively fixed and costs are mostly all customer support. So, there is this gulf from the <$1000 category (no customer support--we have a forum, maybe, and it is probably in Chinese) to the >$25,000 category (okay, we make enough profit per sale to allocate a couple of hours of a real human to talk to you).
mark-r 8y ago
The original HP Laserjets (up through at least the III) were indestructible marvels. I also had a Deskjet 720c that was nearly perfect, I used it until the drive belt shredded after many years of good service.
Zelphyr 8y ago
Back in the mid-90's I had an HP 486 PC and printer (can't remember the model number) that both worked pretty well, all things considered. Now we have an all-in-one HP printer/fax/scanner/copier that gets me closer to that scene in Office Space than any device I've ever owned. The obscenely overpriced cartridges don't last. It takes forever to warm up. The list goes on and I'll never own another HP product again.

by sk5t 8y ago

technobabble 8y ago

Technically the HP division for oscilloscopes and ee equipment still lives on via Siglent/Agilent/whatever name they're calling it now. Does anybody know why their test instruments division was spun off in the 90's? Was it to cut down on bureaucracy, or to "reinvent" the company for the digital age, or something else?

guest2143 8y ago
Spinning it off was part of the deal with Carly coming on board. :/
reportingsjr 8y ago
Siglent is a Chinese test equipment company. Agilent is HP's life science division (test equipment for biology folks) and the electronic test equipment division is now called keysight. As far as I'm aware these two were spun out since the growth wasn't as good as the consumer electronics division.
- tannhaeuser 8y ago
  Or to save the crown jewels from going under with HP the IT conglomerate. I guess a mature IT and consumer mass market requires different corporate structure, scale, and growth compared to ee and chem lab equipment.
mrpippy 8y ago
The test equipment and medical/chemical diagnostics business was spun off into Agilent in 1999, and Agilent then spun out the test equipment a few years ago. Keysight Technologies is now where they live on.
bsder 8y ago
> Does anybody know why their test instruments division was spun off in the 90's? Profit, but no growth. All the manufacturers of test equipment have the same issues: the number of people who need test equipment is effectively fixed and costs are mostly all customer support. So, there is this gulf from the <$1000 category (no customer support--we have a forum, maybe, and it is probably in Chinese) to the >$25,000 category (okay, we make enough profit per sale to allocate a couple of hours of a real human to talk to you).

mark-r 8y ago

The original HP Laserjets (up through at least the III) were indestructible marvels. I also had a Deskjet 720c that was nearly perfect, I used it until the drive belt shredded after many years of good service.

Zelphyr 8y ago

Back in the mid-90's I had an HP 486 PC and printer (can't remember the model number) that both worked pretty well, all things considered. Now we have an all-in-one HP printer/fax/scanner/copier that gets me closer to that scene in Office Space than any device I've ever owned. The obscenely overpriced cartridges don't last. It takes forever to warm up. The list goes on and I'll never own another HP product again.