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HP was the top-shelf electrical engineering instrument company. Every top-tier lab would have HP equipment. Aspiring computer-makers wouldn't be able to afford

HP was the top-shelf electrical engineering instrument company. Every top-tier lab would have HP equipment. Aspiring computer-makers wouldn't be able to afford it and would lust after it from a distance. This probably includes young Steve Jobs. HP built plotters and printers because their customers wanted hardcopies of what they saw on their instrument screens. They built computers to control the instruments and calculators to assist engineers with calculations. Then, for some reason, the computers and printers started selling even better than the instruments. HP, which still thought of themselves as an instrumentation company, didn't catch on quickly or aggressively enough to capitalize, so their computers and printers did not keep pace and became... other than undisputably first tier. Eventually they span off the first-tier instrumentation company as Agilent (bio + EE) which in turn eventually span off Keysight (EE). Electrical Engineers are still salty that the mediocre printer company got to keep the HP name while the best-in-class instrumentation company that still commands respect to this very day had to rebrand as "Keysight."

hermitdev 7y ago
When I was in college, studying EE, we had HP oscilloscopes and digital logic analyzers. I can't remember for sure, but I think it was the logic analyzers that had an easter egg that if you held down a specific set of buttons while powering on, you could play Tetris on it. I also remember the oscilloscope being so sensitive, that without any leads connected, it could detect the signal of someone walking by it.
- jjoonathan 7y ago
  Yep! Their legacy continues today. Here's HP (sorry, I mean Agilent, sorry, I mean Keysight) dropping a 110GHz real-time oscilloscope: https://youtu.be/dB5rg_TqmD8?t=32 https://youtu.be/dB5rg_TqmD8?t=32 I'd like to think that if Bill and Dave (Hewlett and Packard) were still alive they could still take pride in their T&M legacy, even though it's the DRM-hobbled one-quarter-full printer ink cartridges that wound up with their names on the front.
- mauvehaus 7y ago
  Don't know about the logic analyzers, but I played tetris on an HP scope in a lab on campus years ago.

hermitdev 7y ago

When I was in college, studying EE, we had HP oscilloscopes and digital logic analyzers. I can't remember for sure, but I think it was the logic analyzers that had an easter egg that if you held down a specific set of buttons while powering on, you could play Tetris on it. I also remember the oscilloscope being so sensitive, that without any leads connected, it could detect the signal of someone walking by it.

jjoonathan 7y ago
Yep! Their legacy continues today. Here's HP (sorry, I mean Agilent, sorry, I mean Keysight) dropping a 110GHz real-time oscilloscope: https://youtu.be/dB5rg_TqmD8?t=32 https://youtu.be/dB5rg_TqmD8?t=32 I'd like to think that if Bill and Dave (Hewlett and Packard) were still alive they could still take pride in their T&M legacy, even though it's the DRM-hobbled one-quarter-full printer ink cartridges that wound up with their names on the front.
mauvehaus 7y ago
Don't know about the logic analyzers, but I played tetris on an HP scope in a lab on campus years ago.