Last summer, I had the privilege of being "emcee" for an HP History day, which was hosted in the HP Palo Alto Auditorium, open to the public. Three terrific historians of HP equipments (much of it actually Agilent equipment today) gave their perspective and shared their enthusiasm with the audience. See it at www.ncast.com as "Chuck House -- HP History"
Glenn Robb, an inveterate hobbyist, hosts a website with more than 50,000 scanned pages of HP records, including nearly all HP Measure issues and many product manuals.[i]
Long-term HPite Marc Mislanghe near Biarritz, France has collected and restored more than five hundred pieces of equipment, plus countless documents, pictures, and other artifacts. Fervent engineer Kenneth Kuhn, in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, has also rescued and refurbished several hundred pieces of equipment from imminent destruction.[ii]
The question for you is -- do you have HP stories/gear/literature to contribute? If so, call or write, or POST TO THIS BLOG. It will be read
[i] Robb’s invaluable archival trove is at http://www.hparchive.com/about_glenn_robb.htm. Much of this is searchable. None of these sites are official HP sites; all have working agreements with HP archivists.
[ii] See www.kennethkuhn.com/hpmuseum/ for the American hobbyist; the French collector’s website is www.hpmemory.org, and he can be reached at Marcmislanghe@compuserve.com.
2 comments:
I think that every HP employee has at least one if not many good human interest stories to tell. I hope that these will be told before they are gone for good. Although I never worked at HP the feeling that I get from my long study of the company is that the original HP was a very special place where the human side of the equation was just as important as the technical side. The result was that many great things happened. I think there are countless lessons that should be learned by everyone so that perhaps great things can be repeated at other companies. But these lessons can not be learned if no one tells the stories. So please, submit your stories! I have heard many great stories from retired and former HP employees I have talked with. There must be many more. HP was the inspiration for me to become a fine engineer. My wish is that others can be inspired too.
Ken, I couldn't agree more. The stories are THE story. Thanks for the input!
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