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From: rdgoogle on 22 Jan 2008 16:25
I feel like in the past decade I've gone from being an almost-insider
in the world of HP calculators to a totally clueless outsider. I can
remember when Carly announced that HP was discontinuing calculators
because they were "no longer profitable," and the impact of that
announcement on the toy shop in Corvallis. I can remember when the HP
calculator effort reappeared in Australia, of all places. I can
remember a whole series of really ugly calculators with an HP
nameplate. I can remember the HP brand being a rarity among the
thousands, millions even, of TI livestock on high school and college
campuses.

And I have observed, in recent years, people fondly remembering the
"good old days" of HP calculators in the press and on the Internet,
accompanied by the release of the venerable HP12C Mark XXVIII, HP12C
Platinum Edition, and the deliciously retro HP35S. Blue and yellow
shift keys?! Get outta my way! I want one! (Has anybody done a red
LED downgrade kit for the 35S yet?)

But I've been on my own personal journey for the last 10 years, from
HP to Agilent to layoffs, through small business and public school
teaching, and back into engineering (neither HP nor Agilent), and I
have lots and lots of questions. Here are some to start with.

1a. How did calculators end up in Australia?
1b. How did Jean-Francois et cie. end up in Australia?
1c. Who at HP had the brains (and the courage) to hire them?
2. Ou sont-ils aujourd'hui?
3. Did calculators go to Singapore before Australia, or after, or
both?
4. Who in Palo Alto was responsible for keeping HP calculators on
life support during the tough times, and how in the world did they get
away with it? I mean, Carly was not kind, and nobody was safe from
her inquisitions.
5. Where is calculator R&D now? Where is calculator mfg? Where is
Wing Kin Cheung's office?
6. Who is Wing Kin Cheung? How long has he been with HP? Where did
he work before becoming the calculator division manager?
7. What's the calculator division called now? And what do they do
besides calcs?
8. What does Wing know about HP calcs, besides the fact that the
HP12C got him through school?
9. Who is running the HP calc marketing effort? Why are they doing
such a terrible job at it?

--
Regards
Ray
From: Joel Koltner on 22 Jan 2008 16:44
Ray,

Are you the Ray that used to work on monitors in the workstation division of
HP back in Colorado?

How did you go from private industry to teaching in a public school? Seems
that these days unless you train to be a teacher from the git-go (college),
you're no longer allowed to teach.

I'll leave your questions for others who are far more knowledgable than I am
to answer, although I will add that you might go to HPCC next year -- a lot of
these sorts of things are discussed there. Wing King has a blog at
http://h20325.www2.hp.com/blogs/cheung/archive/2007/10/09/4701.html, that you
might want to read.

---Joel


From: rdgoogle on 22 Jan 2008 17:18
On Jan 22, 2:44 pm, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgro...(a)yahoo.com>
wrote:
> Ray,
>
> Are you the Ray that used to work on monitors in the workstation division of
> HP back in Colorado?

I worked for HP in Colorado for a long time, but I was in LID and
ICBD, not workstations.

> How did you go from private industry to teaching in a public school?  Seems
> that these days unless you train to be a teacher from the git-go (college),
> you're no longer allowed to teach.

The state of Colorado has a "retread" program called Alternative
Teacher Licensure, that people without a teaching degree can use to
become teachers. Teaching math to middle and high schoolers was one
of the most fulfilling things I've done in my life.

Thanks to the pointer to Wing King's blog. I'll start there.

Oh! I have two more questions for anybody who wants to answer them!

10. What's the story behind this OEM (Kinpo) mentioned at www.hpmuseum.org?
Where are they located? Did HP search them out, or did they sell
their ideas to HP? It looks like most (all?) of their work was
incremental work: version II or version "+" of an existing machine,
migration from Saturn to ARM, and so on. What was the motivation
behind this outsourcing effort? Are they still outsourcing?

(I can think of several answers to that last question, but they all
involve four-letter words and unflattering judgements regarding the
character of HP's executives, so I'll keep them to myself.)

11. Has anybody ever gotten one of those cellphone bling kits and
stuck the fake jewels all over their HP33S like teenyboppers do to
their cellphones?

--
Regards
Ray
From: rdgoogle on 25 Jan 2008 23:00
*bump*
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