4 ms·

Not surprising at all--HP in the early 1990s was still very much an engineering-focused company (both H and P were on the board until `93) that made high-qualit

Not surprising at all--HP in the early 1990s was still very much an engineering-focused company (both H and P were on the board until `93) that made high-quality, durable products. This was right before it got gobbled up by MBAs and celebrity CEOs, who spun it off into a hundred subunits hawking flimsy plastic trinkets and "business consulting".

hodgesrm 5y ago
I got an HP Laserjet in the late 80s for a computer center I ran at the University of Washington in Seattle. It was the best piece of hardware I've ever purchased. The clincher was the care with which they packed it and the simple instructions to take it out of the box and get it running. I knew it was going to be great before even powering up for the first time.
jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
What happened to HP is so sad. They made fantastic products, especially their high precision stuff. Those oscilloscopes still fetch a decent price on ebay because they're so dang good. Up where I live there were a lot of HP employees in the LAN party scene pre broadband. Anyone would be frustrated and angry over layoffs, but what happened locally was a different level of disillusion and disappointment. It was brutal to just watch as someone adjacent, not going through it. Fiorina got a lot of sexist nonsense thrown her direction, but at the end of the day, was still a terrible CEO. HP's capitalization grew by 3 billion dollars in a single day when it was announced she was on the way out. Markets certainly aren't oracles, but that's one hell of a shift.
cabalamat 5y ago
Agreed. I used to have a DeskJet 500 which I sadly got rid of years ago. It had much better build quality than modern inkjet printers. > This was right before it got gobbled up by MBAs and celebrity CEOs, who spun it off into a hundred subunits hawking flimsy plastic trinkets and "business consulting". Indeed. Very sad.

hodgesrm 5y ago

I got an HP Laserjet in the late 80s for a computer center I ran at the University of Washington in Seattle. It was the best piece of hardware I've ever purchased. The clincher was the care with which they packed it and the simple instructions to take it out of the box and get it running. I knew it was going to be great before even powering up for the first time.

jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago

What happened to HP is so sad. They made fantastic products, especially their high precision stuff. Those oscilloscopes still fetch a decent price on ebay because they're so dang good. Up where I live there were a lot of HP employees in the LAN party scene pre broadband. Anyone would be frustrated and angry over layoffs, but what happened locally was a different level of disillusion and disappointment. It was brutal to just watch as someone adjacent, not going through it. Fiorina got a lot of sexist nonsense thrown her direction, but at the end of the day, was still a terrible CEO. HP's capitalization grew by 3 billion dollars in a single day when it was announced she was on the way out. Markets certainly aren't oracles, but that's one hell of a shift.

cabalamat 5y ago

Agreed. I used to have a DeskJet 500 which I sadly got rid of years ago. It had much better build quality than modern inkjet printers. > This was right before it got gobbled up by MBAs and celebrity CEOs, who spun it off into a hundred subunits hawking flimsy plastic trinkets and "business consulting". Indeed. Very sad.