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...
Yeah, too bad it had not been digitized sooner.
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.
Historically, technology has been deflationary.
I think I have this scope or a very similar one. I got it for free from someone else. (currently in storage.) It's a great hobbyist scope although mine doesn't have a DFT function which can be annoying. I've been borrowing a friend's modern digital scope when I've needed one. I think he only paid a few hundred for it. It's a little faster and has some more modern functions.
EDIT: Oops nope. Looked at the model number rather than the brochure. That's definitely an older analog scope while mine is digital.
I thought it would be an HP computer driver archive, as HP are notorious for taking down the driver downloads for older models. Does anyone know of such a driver archive?
The Sony Vaio line of computers had a similar problem, and community members launched the Vaio Library (https://vaiolibrary.com/index.php/Welcome_to_the_VAIO_Librar... / https://archive.vaiolibrary.com/)
If the website didn't use some annoying click tracking redirection or javascript, try the old standby: https://archive.org
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.
I rescued an HP-200A audio oscillator from the basement of a relative who’d passed away, thinking it looked interesting. Anyone know if it has any value? I’m guessing it’s nothing too special with a serial number of 30211.
FYI they say "Computers and calculators are not the focus of this archive website."
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.
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.
In the off-topic calculator department: hpcalc.org :)
I have an HP 48 (series of graphing calculators) overhead projector display (InVision 48) that may need refurbishment to work, but I just found the manual at hpcalc.org.[0]
Historically it's interesting, but come on, give us the IRIX source code, we know you have it somewhere.
IBM - AIX
DEC - Ultrix/Digital Unix
Apple - A/UX, macOS
HP - HP-UX
SGI - IRIX
Sun - SunOS, Solaris
In the 00's, the CS program at my undergrad university had computer clusters with all of the above +Linux +MINIX -Apple -DEC. It was de rigueur then to write portable C/C++ code and (non-GNU) Makefiles.
Also, lest not forget the contentious one: SCO - SCO -> Sun -> Oracle
Given acquisitions, the current IP ownership is more like:
IBM - AIX
HPE - ULTRIX, Tru64/OSF1/DIGITAL UNIX, HP-UX, IRIX
Apple - A/UX, macOS
Oracle - SunOS, Solaris