Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff dot com. Hello everyone, and
Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: and sitting across from me is senior writer Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: the sun shone having no alternative on the nothing new
Speaker 1: mm hmm. Welcome to part two of our story about
Speaker 1: Hewlett Packard, which has been a company about almost everything
Speaker 1: new in a lot of ways. Yeah, it was all
Speaker 1: about new measuring devices for other devices. If you're just
Speaker 1: tuning in. Two guys named Bill and Dave decided to
Speaker 1: work in a garage create a company because they were
Speaker 1: both electrical engineer years and their their mentor from college
Speaker 1: from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know you, you should come up with some kind
Speaker 1: of measurement tools that will be able to help companies
Speaker 1: identify negative feedback. Uh. And they did, and then they
Speaker 1: started making other kinds of products too, and uh gradually uh.
Speaker 1: And when I say gradually, very rapidly in a burgeoning
Speaker 1: electronic field. We're able to demonstrate their leadership both as
Speaker 1: innovators in technology and innovators in price. We're able to
Speaker 1: accumulate a pretty big business customer base in very short time.
Speaker 1: They also did a lot to help employees and change
Speaker 1: the way people did business in the United States. And
Speaker 1: if you're wondering about other famous companies that began as
Speaker 1: a business run out of a garage in California, look
Speaker 1: up companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google. Yes, because, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, if you want to create a technology
Speaker 1: company in California, your best bet is to start in
Speaker 1: someone's garage. You know, I necessarily have to be yours either,
Speaker 1: you know. I uh, I have a car poard and
Speaker 1: I feel like most of my projects are short of
Speaker 1: open ended, right right, So I don't know, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: doesn't You don't have the full protection that a garage provides. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've got a garage, but I only run a lemonade stand,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately my garage does not face the road, so
Speaker 1: it has had some hard times starting off. Also, we're
Speaker 1: in the winter right now, so not a huge demand. Clearly,
Speaker 1: I should have looked at my goals a little more
Speaker 1: closely before I launched this this endeavor. But let's get
Speaker 1: back to HP. Yeah, we decided we were going to
Speaker 1: take a break towards the end of the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: right before the end of the nineteen fifties, literally because um, again,
Speaker 1: as you're just tuning in, HP has grown so much
Speaker 1: in its first twenty years. Um that wait, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: first twenty years right that it has decided that it
Speaker 1: can grow globally, and it um decides to open its
Speaker 1: own marketing group in Switzerland and a manufacturing operation in Germany.
Speaker 1: So now we've got UH locations in Europe and in
Speaker 1: the United States, and it has become a multinational corporation. Yes.
Speaker 1: Also in nineteen HP acquired its second company, the Boonton
Speaker 1: Radio Corporation, which was originally founded in nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 1: and this company created electronic test equipment, so right there
Speaker 1: in HP's wheelhouse. So the company is kind of solidifying
Speaker 1: it's it's u place in the electronics market and again
Speaker 1: still really concentrating on one particular set of electronic devices,
Speaker 1: stuff that's not for consumers. I think it's interesting because Chris,
Speaker 1: now when you think of HP today, you often what
Speaker 1: what sort of products do you think of Well, I
Speaker 1: think of of consumer products, especially computers, because that's what
Speaker 1: I see more advertising for, and computers. I tend to
Speaker 1: think also of printers. HP is very big in the
Speaker 1: world of printers, so we we tend to think of
Speaker 1: these devices as HP. If you say HP today, and
Speaker 1: we'll get to it in our our third part about
Speaker 1: how when HP was looking at the possibility of spinning
Speaker 1: off its personal computer business, everyone freaked out. But really,
Speaker 1: when you look at the history of the company as
Speaker 1: a whole, the personal computer business is just a very
Speaker 1: tiny sliver of what that company is all about. And
Speaker 1: it's easy to forget that because that's sort of the
Speaker 1: face that the public is really familiar with. But yes, this,
Speaker 1: this Boonton Radio Corporation was more along the lines of
Speaker 1: what the real core of HP's business was all about.
Speaker 1: Creating these these devices that help companies measure and quantify
Speaker 1: what their systems are doing. This is really important in
Speaker 1: businesses like radio or telecommunications, where you build up these
Speaker 1: complex networks, these complex infrastructures, and you have to be
Speaker 1: able to test different parts of the infrastructure to make
Speaker 1: sure everything's working properly right um well as as you
Speaker 1: pointed out to UM, you know, UH, you might think
Speaker 1: that a company that is started and organized and run
Speaker 1: by engineers might be more uh methodical and may not
Speaker 1: necessarily have that UM business aspect to it, where the
Speaker 1: person running the company as a real business person. But
Speaker 1: Bill Hewlett and and Dave Packard always had the sort
Speaker 1: of an idea of how they wanted to run a
Speaker 1: company behind it, and they came up with the HP
Speaker 1: way of doing things, and uh Mr Packard came up
Speaker 1: with his UH rules interactions, and those included keeping an
Speaker 1: I on your core businesses and uh growing to to
Speaker 1: make sure that you're competitive in the future. And this
Speaker 1: acquisition sort of I think exemplifies that because it is
Speaker 1: it is both of those things. And also in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, that was the year. If you listen to
Speaker 1: our previous podcast about HP, I mentioned that HP had
Speaker 1: created a spinoff company called Well, originally Dinak but then
Speaker 1: later di mac uh and they did they figured out
Speaker 1: the name by flipping the HP logo upside down and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this HP looks like a d y uh. Well in
Speaker 1: nine that's when they folded DIMEC back into the HP. Actually,
Speaker 1: I guess not back into but brought DIMEC under the
Speaker 1: fold of the umbrella of HP and UH, and it
Speaker 1: became a division within the company. Now that was when
Speaker 1: HP had created this whole division structure, So DIMEC became
Speaker 1: its own sort of autonomous division within HP, and that
Speaker 1: and that organization was built. You basically offer UH solutions
Speaker 1: to customers using HP products. So it made sense that
Speaker 1: they weren't so far removed from the mother company that
Speaker 1: it was going to be a poor fit. Now, do
Speaker 1: you have anything for nineteen sixty because my next note
Speaker 1: for sixty one another acquisition? Uh? Yeah, Well they acquire
Speaker 1: the Sandborn Company, which was a medical equipment manufacturer and
Speaker 1: this is a different a bit of a different field
Speaker 1: for them, right and uh and this would be part
Speaker 1: of HP for well several decades um. It would eventually
Speaker 1: spin off, and we'll talk about that when it happens.
Speaker 1: But this was an attempt on HPS part to really
Speaker 1: kind of broaden its its horizons and get into some
Speaker 1: industries that at this point it really hadn't dipped its
Speaker 1: toe into. And also in nineteen sixty one, it was
Speaker 1: a big year for HP because on March seventeenth, it
Speaker 1: listed for the very first time on the New York
Speaker 1: Stock Exchange. Yes, so, uh, you know, it had launched
Speaker 1: its I p O previously, but now it's actually listed
Speaker 1: on the n y s E. Which is that's a
Speaker 1: big deal for a company. Yes, yes, um. And as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, in sixty two, HP had a
Speaker 1: a another famous uh organization, take note of them, Fortune
Speaker 1: the magazine. They were named to the Fortune List at
Speaker 1: number four sixty. It's hard for me to believe now
Speaker 1: that HP was ever that low on that list, but
Speaker 1: you know they didn't start at one point yep, yep.
Speaker 1: And this is you know again, it's the company is
Speaker 1: not even thirty years old yet, and it's uh, that's impressive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it makes the Fortune List and that's pretty pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: And that year they brought in revenues of around a
Speaker 1: hundred ten million dollars and they had more than six
Speaker 1: thousand employees by now, so big jump from that two
Speaker 1: employee operation run out of a garage in Palo Alto. Yes, indeed.
Speaker 1: So in in nineteen sixty three, the eight the company
Speaker 1: comes up with the fifty one hundred A frequency analyzer,
Speaker 1: which you know, it's it's one of those pieces of
Speaker 1: equipment again not meant for the average consumer unless you
Speaker 1: go into space. Yeah. Yeah, Now, if you want to
Speaker 1: take a look at these, HP has a lot of
Speaker 1: pictures of these and and I don't know if you
Speaker 1: took a look at some of them for some of
Speaker 1: these products brochures as well to sell those products, which
Speaker 1: are very very entertaining. Um, but you can get an
Speaker 1: idea of looking at of looking at these early instruments
Speaker 1: that HP was providing. Now, the documentation I read about
Speaker 1: them was that they were very They weren't glamorous, they
Speaker 1: weren't pretty boxes, but they did they worked very well.
Speaker 1: The early ones were actually housed in wooden boxes, wooden cabinets.
Speaker 1: But eventually HP came up with decided that this this
Speaker 1: sort of decorative finish. All it really did was it
Speaker 1: added bulk and expense to the item, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: really useful. I mean, but yeah, there was a time
Speaker 1: early in the history of HPS products where if you
Speaker 1: bought one of these devices that be have you know,
Speaker 1: the metal front facing with all the controls and everything,
Speaker 1: and then the actual frame was would and they used
Speaker 1: oak by the way, that was the wood the voice, yes,
Speaker 1: and what they decided not to go with the industry standard,
Speaker 1: and they decided to go with Oak. By the way,
Speaker 1: when you talk about those brochures trying to sell these products,
Speaker 1: I can't help but think of like the stereotypical nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties commercial where you hear like the music do do
Speaker 1: Do Do Do Do Do Do do, and say have
Speaker 1: you come back from a long day at work only
Speaker 1: to jump into your deep space exploration vehicle and realize
Speaker 1: you don't have a frequency analyzer. We have just the
Speaker 1: item for you. And it sounds like the Raymond Scott
Speaker 1: accompany accompanied uh item of the future. Um yeah, these
Speaker 1: these pieces of equipment, um, since they weren't really aimed
Speaker 1: at the consumer market, they're the kinds of things that
Speaker 1: look like they cam came off the set of a
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties science fiction film when they're trying to recreate
Speaker 1: the control room of a spaceship. Yeah, these are definitely exactly.
Speaker 1: These are definitely the machines that go ping. Um yeah.
Speaker 1: And also they work. They did their actual work very well. Yes,
Speaker 1: not not exciting to know. It's if to the average
Speaker 1: person that it looks like, you know, random piece of
Speaker 1: electronic equipment a Hey, it's got a meter on it.
Speaker 1: What does it do? And it measures the sound frequencies
Speaker 1: there really what does it do? Why? Why does it
Speaker 1: do that? It's use but yeah, yeah, that's that's the
Speaker 1: trick of really learning about HPS early products is that
Speaker 1: if you really want to know, you know, why these
Speaker 1: things were important, you'd have to have we'd have to
Speaker 1: do like two more podcasts just to explain the the
Speaker 1: the equipment that this stuff was used to measure. Yes,
Speaker 1: but it helped the companies that use them, uh measurably. Yes. Well.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty three, they also entered their first joint
Speaker 1: venture from the Yokagawa Hewlett Packard venture in Tokyo. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So uh, this again shows that the company is looking
Speaker 1: to expand and this uh Yoka Gawa Hewlett Packard adventure
Speaker 1: would actually meet with great success become very uh a
Speaker 1: very powerful company in its own right. So uh nine
Speaker 1: six four, we have some some titles coming down. Packard
Speaker 1: becomes the CEO of Hewlett Packard and Hewlett becomes the
Speaker 1: president of Hewlett Packard. He's also the Packard was also
Speaker 1: the chairman. Yes, he would later become the chairman as well,
Speaker 1: and in fact, that's different jafferent chairman, different chairman of
Speaker 1: the board. UM. In fact, eventually, not yet, but eventually
Speaker 1: it would become pretty standard at HP for a single
Speaker 1: person to hold the titles of CEO, President and chairman.
Speaker 1: Now at this point that's divided up. Packard is CEO
Speaker 1: and chairman and Hewlett as the president. UM. In ninety
Speaker 1: four was also when the fifties sixty A launched the
Speaker 1: atomic claws and you standard for international time. Yeah, tomic
Speaker 1: clock is very very accurate. You know, nothing, nothing says
Speaker 1: what time? Is it? Like atomic decay? Yep, yep. And again,
Speaker 1: if you look at one of these things, it doesn't
Speaker 1: look like your average desk or your clock radio that
Speaker 1: sits on your bedside table. It's it's a big machine
Speaker 1: with lots of things on it, right, it's not When
Speaker 1: Mickey's big hand is on the mushroom cloud and his
Speaker 1: little hand is on the Manhattan Project, that means it's
Speaker 1: time to get out of the house, crawl into something
Speaker 1: that's lead. Yeah, there's a completely different clock from the
Speaker 1: the bulletin the atomic scientists that that measures that I
Speaker 1: read a different brochure than you did. Anyway. Okay, so
Speaker 1: should we get into the nineteen six period. That's when
Speaker 1: HP laboratories laboratories laboratories, that was that was the first
Speaker 1: time at which they actually said, hey, let's set aside
Speaker 1: a group of people dedicated to come up with new
Speaker 1: and cool stuff. Yeah, this is their research and development
Speaker 1: arm where they're really looking into breaking ground in new technologies,
Speaker 1: which you know, again, HP wasn't so concerned with previously
Speaker 1: in its history. It's not that they weren't innovative. They were.
Speaker 1: They really looked at improving existing technologies, making the more affordable,
Speaker 1: making them more efficient. UM and both Hewlett and Packard
Speaker 1: were were known for designing their own, you know, devices
Speaker 1: that would later become products within the HP line. But
Speaker 1: this is a group specifically dedicated to, hey, guys, UH
Speaker 1: make new stuff. And they picked a guy named Barney
Speaker 1: Oliver to lead the group. He was the founding director
Speaker 1: of HP Labs. UH. And in nineteen sixty six was
Speaker 1: also when a new first for HP launched a Yes,
Speaker 1: first computer. H have you seen this thing? Yes, when
Speaker 1: Mickey's big hand is on the mushroom cloud. No, I did,
Speaker 1: I did see this. It was it was it was
Speaker 1: pretty big. Although we should say not as big as
Speaker 1: some of the other computers that were they were just
Speaker 1: hitting the market or in the in the mid sixties.
Speaker 1: I love the language that HP used on its timeline
Speaker 1: for this, the first go anywhere, do anything comput Yes,
Speaker 1: if you had a forklift right. But still it was
Speaker 1: not the size of room. It wasn't as big as
Speaker 1: an entire room like some computers were. This is not
Speaker 1: what you would consider a netbook counter now, but it
Speaker 1: was the first time the HP used integrated circuits in
Speaker 1: its electronics, and uh, the computer was meant to work
Speaker 1: in and a quote unquote average environment, meaning that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily have to have a heavily air conditioned room
Speaker 1: with spring loaded floors so that so that it could
Speaker 1: support this machine and make sure that doesn't overheat. You know.
Speaker 1: The idea was that HPCE was trying to aim for
Speaker 1: a market for businesses that needed computing power but didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily have the um the money to spend not just
Speaker 1: on the computer, but also on completely renovating a part
Speaker 1: of their building so that could support a computer. Because
Speaker 1: think about that. Let's say that you own a business
Speaker 1: already and it's a successful business, and you need a
Speaker 1: computer for some reason like database management. And you realize
Speaker 1: that if you were to buy the computer, not only
Speaker 1: would it cost an astronomical amount, but you would have
Speaker 1: to completely change at least part of your building so
Speaker 1: that it could hold a computer. This was kind of
Speaker 1: HP's solution to that problem. And uh, it originally had
Speaker 1: four K of magnetic core memory, expandable up to thirty
Speaker 1: two K. Yeah. Yeah. Now, now it's important to to
Speaker 1: note that they developed this this device very quickly for
Speaker 1: a device like it, and um, it was fairly rare
Speaker 1: for a computer to ship with its own software at
Speaker 1: this point, but but this one did. Um. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, it took several data systems engineers and
Speaker 1: DIMAC employees working together to get this thing going. But
Speaker 1: it did power the woods whole ocean at graphic institutes
Speaker 1: work for many years. Yeah. And it was actually used
Speaker 1: on a boat. It was so so it was exposed
Speaker 1: to see air and was still able to work for
Speaker 1: more than a decade. You mean, the chain that was
Speaker 1: the research vessel that used this this computer. And so
Speaker 1: the original cost for one of these things, depending on
Speaker 1: if you wanted it totally tricked out or not, the
Speaker 1: base cost trick you mean with the flame paint job
Speaker 1: and the side and and yeah, and it and the
Speaker 1: glowing undercarriage tricked out, meaning that it had memory. Uh
Speaker 1: you hear it going down. The base price was base
Speaker 1: The base price was twenty five grand, and the upper
Speaker 1: level of it was a fifty grand, which in today's dollars,
Speaker 1: because he knew I had to do that, right, one
Speaker 1: forty six thousand for the cheap cheap or two d
Speaker 1: three thousand, ninety three dollars for the expensive one. So
Speaker 1: more than a quarter of a million dollars if you
Speaker 1: wanted to have that thirty two k of memory. Boy,
Speaker 1: I'm glad the memory prices have gone down recently. Well, um,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. Uh, we should probably step it up because
Speaker 1: we're hoping to make it to the eighties here. Um,
Speaker 1: but that that isn't important. That is an important product. Also.
Speaker 1: The next one that I had was the one that
Speaker 1: came out with the Night which, depending on how you
Speaker 1: looked at it, was the first personal computer. Ye, if
Speaker 1: you looked at the advertising computer. So this is the
Speaker 1: first time, the first documented case of the term personal computer,
Speaker 1: and it's for the the HP A. And this was
Speaker 1: not a personal computer. The way you and I are familiar. Um,
Speaker 1: it's not not like a desktop computer you sit down,
Speaker 1: or even a laptop or anything. No, it was a
Speaker 1: scientific calculator. Um. It was meant as a personal computer
Speaker 1: in the sense that it could compute operations like you
Speaker 1: would put in a scientific operation and it could give
Speaker 1: you the answer. It wasn't meant as a computer that
Speaker 1: would run programs the way that the modern computers do well.
Speaker 1: Wired magazine said it was the first personal computer. And
Speaker 1: I would argue that if you take it in the
Speaker 1: literal sense, they're probably right. Um it's it's a fairly
Speaker 1: big machine. Again, there are photos of it on the
Speaker 1: the HP website. Um, but it was a pretty significant machine.
Speaker 1: I mean compared to other devices that would would do
Speaker 1: this level of work. Um. You know, it was a
Speaker 1: smaller device and it could be used, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty easily. Um. It is bulky by today's terms, by
Speaker 1: by every stretch of the imagination. Um, but it could
Speaker 1: do a lot um and uh, and it was you
Speaker 1: know able, you could you could put this on your desk.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think it's I think it's when
Speaker 1: you take it down to the term computer, I think
Speaker 1: that's an accurate description. But yeah, it doesn't do all
Speaker 1: the stuff that you're not you're not going to play
Speaker 1: farm villains. You're not going to figure it as a PC. No.
Speaker 1: But but that is interesting that it was the first
Speaker 1: documented case of personal computer. And now, of course that
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean that what that term wasn't used before this.
Speaker 1: It's just this is the earliest documented instance. So in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, UM, the United States calls upon Packard. Again,
Speaker 1: Hewlett had uh been uh in shure. You know, Hewlett
Speaker 1: had served time in the United States Army as an
Speaker 1: officer from UH forty one through forty seven. But in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, the United States government called upon Packard
Speaker 1: and appointed him to be the US Deputy of Defense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Hewlett became the CEO, the president and CEO in
Speaker 1: Packard's absence. UM. Yeah, that that's pretty significant because again,
Speaker 1: one of the commitments that he wanted to make for
Speaker 1: the company was service, um, serving your community and serving
Speaker 1: your country. And yeah, nineteen sixty nine through nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: that's an extensive time period for any any you know,
Speaker 1: industry leader to step away and refocus on a government position.
Speaker 1: And this is also a time when the company is
Speaker 1: sort of gradually expanding its work to include more than
Speaker 1: just measurement and medical devices, but they're also getting in
Speaker 1: on the ground floor of what would become personal computing.
Speaker 1: So nineteen seventy one HP introduces laser interferometers, which take
Speaker 1: measurements using lasers, so that they started to get into that. Uh.
Speaker 1: Nineteen seventy two they introduced the HP three thousand, which
Speaker 1: was a computer meant for businesses. It wasn't a personal computer,
Speaker 1: but it was meant to help businesses manage databases. And
Speaker 1: they also introduced the HP thirty five. Uh. Now, the
Speaker 1: HP thirty five actually are a couple models, UM, well,
Speaker 1: sort of. The HP thirty five Classic is a handheld calculator. UM.
Speaker 1: They did, however, UH offer Mr Hewlett at abacus version
Speaker 1: of it. They took a shell and put an avocus
Speaker 1: where the buttons would be and presented it to him.
Speaker 1: There's a photo of it. It's classic. It's an awesome
Speaker 1: jo Apparently he thought it was hilarious. I didn't see
Speaker 1: this one, but that does sound like something he would appreciate.
Speaker 1: Would hold generally, I try not to hold stuff up
Speaker 1: where Jonathan can see it during the podcast because he
Speaker 1: you know, sort of goes home, especially since I don't
Speaker 1: have my glasses on. Okay, well then i'll show it
Speaker 1: to you later. But yeah, this was This was a
Speaker 1: When I think of calculators in the nineteen seventies, I
Speaker 1: think of t I Texas Instruments, a company we have
Speaker 1: already talked about. But HP was definitely right in there
Speaker 1: with them mixing it up. UM and the HP thirty
Speaker 1: five was one of the workhorses of the seventies handheld calculators,
Speaker 1: and HP claims it's the first handheld scientific calculator, so
Speaker 1: not necessarily the first handheld calculator, but first handheld scientific calculator.
Speaker 1: So they were doing science. Yes, this is a triumph
Speaker 1: making a note here success, we'll look at us here
Speaker 1: talking when there's science to be done. H this is
Speaker 1: not the one that can print in Japanese, because there
Speaker 1: is the nineteen seventy three they did introduce a scientific
Speaker 1: calculator that could print in Japanese. That was actually, you know,
Speaker 1: that sounds like it might be pretty trivial, but really,
Speaker 1: when you think about how complex the um that it
Speaker 1: is to to be able to print in a another
Speaker 1: language like that, especially one that has a completely different
Speaker 1: concept as far as alphabets are concerned. Um, well, there's
Speaker 1: a big deal. AT had a numbered data registers and
Speaker 1: the ability to store and recall um math and could
Speaker 1: could do built in conversion. It's better at math than
Speaker 1: I am than I can store and recall. Also had
Speaker 1: a hidden timer inside, so if you weren't doing your
Speaker 1: work fast stuff. I'm kidding. UM. And the and the
Speaker 1: HP eight was the first pocket sized business calculator UM,
Speaker 1: which was following on the the HP thirty five success.
Speaker 1: And then it had an HP There was an HP
Speaker 1: eighty one which had a desktop printing capability to so
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy four, HP produced the first mini computer
Speaker 1: to rely on dynamic random access memory chips or DAM.
Speaker 1: We've talked about that recently on the show. And they
Speaker 1: also created the first programmable pocket calculator. I'm the operator
Speaker 1: of my pocket calculator. Nineteen they introduced an interface bus,
Speaker 1: which was you know, this is what allopts computers work
Speaker 1: with other devices. Um, so's the place where you plug
Speaker 1: in other stuff, right, So I mean again, it sounds like, well,
Speaker 1: you know what's the big deal there? Well, if you
Speaker 1: don't have one of these, then your devices are all
Speaker 1: working independently of each other, and in order for you
Speaker 1: to to plug in information from one to another, you
Speaker 1: have to do it manually. This would allow devices to
Speaker 1: actually communicate with one another. Um. Pretty limited basis at
Speaker 1: this point in the history of computing, but still a
Speaker 1: big development. Yep. And you can tell again we're getting
Speaker 1: into the era where things are supposed to talk to
Speaker 1: other things. So, um, if you had a calculator, you
Speaker 1: might need it to print, um, And you might want
Speaker 1: a pocket calculator that might need to be attached to
Speaker 1: a printer, or a computer that might need to be
Speaker 1: attached to a printer. So that's something like that is
Speaker 1: very important. And then so my next note is in
Speaker 1: nineteen in nineteen seventy said, well, I had the HP seven,
Speaker 1: which is yet another calculator. Again, they're they're making business machines.
Speaker 1: But if you think about it, UM, a measuring device
Speaker 1: might be used by the engineers and the department of
Speaker 1: a different company. So this is my my take on this.
Speaker 1: You start thinking about scientific calculators, handheld calculators, pocket calculators,
Speaker 1: these are the kinds of things that might be used
Speaker 1: by the engineers and the business people the count inside
Speaker 1: or yeah, this is we're marketing transition where the devices
Speaker 1: are getting less specialized. Um and and really you can
Speaker 1: look at this also as a slow move towards the
Speaker 1: consumer market. It would still be a while before we
Speaker 1: actually hit true consumer products through HP. But it's um
Speaker 1: it's a good indicator. So in Hewlett retires as president,
Speaker 1: but he remains the CEO, and a fellow by the
Speaker 1: name of John Young becomes the president of HP, and
Speaker 1: Packard remains the chairman of the board. Yes, um, did
Speaker 1: you want to talk about the HP zero one? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't have any notes on it, so I could,
Speaker 1: but if I do, I'm going to be making it
Speaker 1: all up. The HP zero one calculator watch. It looked
Speaker 1: like a digital watch but had a calculator and there
Speaker 1: it had more than three dozen functions according to HP.
Speaker 1: So we're beginning to learn a lot more about Mr
Speaker 1: Palette in this podcast, as his excitement over calculators becomes
Speaker 1: something troubling to me. Uh, well, sometimes you need that
Speaker 1: extra digit. Um. I love the way that says the
Speaker 1: copy on the HP website said it allowed you to
Speaker 1: manipulate an inter re late time so apparently you could
Speaker 1: go forward and backward in time, so then you could
Speaker 1: go back to that stock and head forward to UM.
Speaker 1: It was code named Cricket, and it was a business failure.
Speaker 1: It was huge UM and they only sold it through
Speaker 1: like Huge as in the It was a large watch.
Speaker 1: You couldn't lift your arm, put your arms down when
Speaker 1: you get to school. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm teasing,
Speaker 1: but it was. It was bulky. If you look again,
Speaker 1: they have photos on the HP site. It was not
Speaker 1: a small device by UM, but it did have a
Speaker 1: alis built into the bracelet part of the watch, so
Speaker 1: you could use it for that. UM. It was also
Speaker 1: to the point where they only sold it in high
Speaker 1: end jewelry store so you know UM. However, because they
Speaker 1: the miniaturization was kind of UM proprietary, you might say, uh,
Speaker 1: as soon as they discontinued its manufacturer, they destroyed it
Speaker 1: so that they couldn't that no one else could get
Speaker 1: hold of the it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands. Well,
Speaker 1: if you've got a time machine, you gotta be destroy
Speaker 1: it because otherwise who knows could who could get hold
Speaker 1: of it? Yes, yes, but at the time it was
Speaker 1: released you could buy one for six fifty dollars for
Speaker 1: the silver version or seven fifty for the gold version.
Speaker 1: Not cheap. That's not cheap in to day's dollars. So anyhow, So,
Speaker 1: getting close to the end of the seventies, Yeah, Hewlett
Speaker 1: retires completely from the company and John John Young becomes presidency.
Speaker 1: Well Hewlett, they had trouble retired, true retiring Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: these it was their baby. I don't blame they made
Speaker 1: this this company. But he's no longer the the head
Speaker 1: of the company. John Young is both president and CEO
Speaker 1: at that time. And then in nineteen seventy nine, HP
Speaker 1: creates the HP Company Foundation. Uh. And at this point
Speaker 1: the revenues for the company are at two point four
Speaker 1: billion with a B dollars and and HP employees more
Speaker 1: than fifty thousand people. Yes, and this is when they
Speaker 1: decide that HP will be far more successful if disco
Speaker 1: music weren't popular, So they began a campaign to end
Speaker 1: the popular hitting. It's forty years after the founding of
Speaker 1: the company and now they are success. I mean, no,
Speaker 1: no portal joke intended there exactly really absolutely established itself
Speaker 1: as a massive success. And uh, this marks a time
Speaker 1: where you know, in nineteen eighty we're going to see
Speaker 1: some some interesting UM developments, including HPS move into the
Speaker 1: industries that were familiar with today, the consumer industries were
Speaker 1: familiar with today. But I think that that will serve
Speaker 1: as our third and final part of the HP story
Speaker 1: as it stands today. Clearly the company is still going
Speaker 1: as we speak, so it's not that their history is over,
Speaker 1: but we are going to cover from night up to
Speaker 1: present day as of the recording of this podcast. Anyway,
Speaker 1: in our next segment, Yes, it gets considerably messier in
Speaker 1: the next segment. Yeah, this is where we start to
Speaker 1: wins UM and we'll get into why that is. And
Speaker 1: it's it's a complex story and not an entirely happy one,
Speaker 1: but still very important company, so we will we will
Speaker 1: cover that in our next episode. If you guys have
Speaker 1: any suggestions for topics you would like us to cover,
Speaker 1: whether it's another focus on a company or an innovator,
Speaker 1: or if it's a specific product or just a concept
Speaker 1: in technology in general, let us know. You can drop
Speaker 1: us a line on Facebook or Twitter or handled there
Speaker 1: is tech stuff. H s W and Chris and I
Speaker 1: will talk to you again really soon. Be sure to
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