HP Test Gear Museum

[peter scott]

Does your wife or partner ever suggest that your collection is out of hand?
http://www.kennethkuhn.com/hpmuseum/hp_tour.htm

Peter

[Refugee]

That is a serious collection.

[Craig]

I thought I was obsessive about Tektronix gear - but what I have is a tiny fraction of what that guy has stashed away.

[ppppenguin]

I used to know a guy called Gordon Shorley (sp?) who lived somewhere in the East Midlands. He had a great collection of Tek kit, but again nothing on the scale of that guy's HP collection.

[chriswood]

It goes to show what an incredible range of products HP made over the years, shame the company is a shadow of its former self!
Chris

[Craig]

That is always true when the original founder(s) dies.

Howard Vollum and Tektronix (now owned by Dahaner). Not as much a pale shadow as HP though.
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard and HP
Melville Eastham and General Radio (now entirely defunct)

And then there is the name change game:

Motorola becomes ON-Semi
Hitachi and Mitsubishi merge to become Renesas Technology, which then merges with NEC to become Renesas.
Philips Semiconductor becomes NXP

Then there is the acquisition game. Foremost among these is Vishay, who buy anything that is up for sale in electronic components both active and passive.

I could stand on this particular soapbox for a long time.....

Craig

[Mark Hennessy]

I'm not so sure - today, Keysight seem to be rather better at oscilloscopes than Tek.

They're owned by a new(ish) spin-off today: http://www.fortive.com/ - what this means for the future of Tek is anyone's guess.

Of course, many other "big brands" are part of this, including Fluke, Amprobe, Keithley, Pomona, etc...

It's also fun to play this game with the hi-fi industry. For example, I recently learnt that the same Indian firm who owns a large share in Spendor recently acquired SME. Prior to that, Spendor acquired Timberworx, who manufacturers the cabinets for the majority of the UK hi-fi industry - which presented an interesting conundrum to Spendor's competitors!

I nearly did my industrial year out with HP at Winnersh Triangle. I had a successful interview, which went on for hours because we were all have such fun critiquing the folder of (frankly terrible) designs that I'd brought along - and then because everyone else had gone home, I got a lengthy tour of the labs, etc. It was an amazing day. Sadly, the funds for the placements were pulled by the US mothership, so I ended up somewhere much worse. I often wonder how things might've gone if I'd spent a year at HP...

[peter scott]

That is always true when the original founder(s) dies.

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard and HP

The Division of HP that I worked in for more than 30 years used to employ over 1200 people. It has now been demolished and given over to housing. 

HP was a very nice paternal company to work for and Hewlett and Packard published a little booklet of the company ethics entitled "The HP Way". When we heard of the closure one of my colleagues suggested that one of the new streets should be called HP Way but it should be made a dead end!

Peter 

[Craig]

Grief - I missed that SME had changed hands. Same guy (Ajay Shirke) also has the majority share in the high end cable company Siltech.

Colour me shocked and dismayed.

[Nick]

I nearly did my industrial year out with HP at Winnersh Triangle. I had a successful interview, which went on for hours because we were all have such fun critiquing the folder of (frankly terrible) designs that I'd brought along - and then because everyone else had gone home, I got a lengthy tour of the labs, etc. It was an amazing day. Sadly, the funds for the placements were pulled by the US mothership, so I ended up somewhere much worse. I often wonder how things might've gone if I'd spent a year at HP...

I spent a couple of years working for DEC (subsequently HP), in the USA (The Mill), France (Annecy & Valbonne), Switzerland (EHQ Petit-Lancy & Ferney-Voltaire) and finally ... Worton Grange (Reading DEC Park/HP). Loved my time there.

DEC & HP were very alike, except that DEC were undone by incompetent senior management, specifically, Bob Palmer.