What happened, Hewlett Packard?

[CaddmannQ]

Back when I was in college, a Hewlett Packard was the best you could buy. I remember when the Hewlett-Packard slide rule calculator came out at a cost of $500, which was the new reduced price for students.

I bought the much less expensive Texas Instruments SR 50, And it was quickly replaced by a string of less expensive and more powerful devices.

But I always remembered what respect Hewlett Packard held with the engineers, and how I wished I had been able to buy one.

Fast forward about 50 years and here I am scrapping out my HP color printer, which could not be saved by the application of expensive new ink cartridges. Evidently, it had some problems that could not be discovered by the debugging software.

Anyhow inside the Hewlett Packard I recovered hardware & electronic bits that I may find useful.

I also discovered about $200 worth of semi-dry printer ink just shot all over the spots of the printer reserved for head cleaning residue, by the pneumatic head cleaning system.

But this is what ticks me off.


Buried deep inside the printer where you could never find it and change it is a cheap little battery.


An ordinary person simply could not get the machine apart far enough, for the lack of instructions and miniature tools.

Now I will admit that I have seen these batteries last a long time in some devices, and I have seen them fail quickly in others.

But I think it’s so mean that they didn’t allow for easy battery replacement on the machine this complicated.

There is an amazing amount of product engineering hours and production tooling engineering and construction that goes into the construction of this machine, not including any actual computer code or electronic work, or the absolute modern miracle of Piezo-electric printheads that use vibrating crystals to pump ink through microscopic jets.

I am insulted to think they could not bother to include this facility, considering the mountains they have already moved.

 

[Bobster]

I've owned many HP (Compaq) printers and computers. The first computer I "built" was a Pavilion from the Staples "discount" aisle that someone had bought, gutted the CPU and HD out of it, then returned "not working". Bought a mini-format Pavilion that was nothing but trouble, replaced once under warranty, then gutted for parts the next time the proprietary mobo failed and it was out of warranty. Have had very good luck with Dell computers but most of my boxes of rocks have been roll your own.

I've resurrected clogged print jets by removing the cartridge housing and soaking in warm water. I just scrapped an OJ6500 that had an electronic malfunction that was irrecoverable. Maybe it was the battery? I was only using it as a scanner, anyway... I have a clogged-ink OJ8500 I'm using for that role now. Between the office and shop I have 4 Brother laser printers that work admirably and no dried out ink cartridges to deal with... You can have any color ink you like as long as it is black...

 

[SalvoJimmy]

Back when I was in college, and even in the Navy Nuclear Power School, I don’t recall HP or TI even being around. It was an outfit called K&E

 

[John A.]

I have an HP printer.

Junkiest and worst printer I have ever had. Epson is 10x the printer that it is. For that matter, if discussing ink cartridges, most of the time, it's cheaper to buy a new HP printer at walmart altogether than buy the ink for the printer itself.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Back when I was in college, and even in the Navy Nuclear Power School, I don’t recall HP or TI even being around. It was an outfit called K&E

I had a K&E in high school and then I bought a Picket dual-base power log.

22 scales on that stick. It was obsolete before I learned to use them all.

 

[MikeD]

I had an HP laser printer that lasted for probably 15 years before it died, it was a beast. In that time I went through multiple laser and ink jets most of which were worth less than the refills. Many were replaced more cheaply than refilled and many just failed for various reasons

They could still make them reliable and last for years but they dont make as much proffit on that business model. Planned obsoescence seems to be built into everything now. Less and less is repairable or servicible

 

[Scoop]

Just to keep it on topic. I remember buying the HP-35 the first week it came out. I think it was just under $200 in the early '70s. I remember having it in the airplane and I was doing calculations for fuel, and TSD calcs, and wind correction just to play around. It actually took longer on the calculator than I could do most of that stuff in my head for the accuracy I needed.

Over the years I collected a lot of office machinery. Call it a hobby. That's more polite than my family's description as a "pointless obsession."

I have a few museum pieces left.
There is 12 inch K&E LogLog Duplex Decitrig

The Otis King Spiral Slide Rule had the scales wrapped around a cylinder. The scales were 66 inches long compared to the 10 inch scales of the K&E.
You could read results to 4 or 5 significant figures depending which end of the scale you were on.

The Curta "Peppergrinder" calculator is my favorite. It is a precision piece of clockwork. It has a great feel and sound when operated.
I used it for doing sports car TSD rallies. Nobody today know what the hell they are but it made great day out in the country for me.
It was the cave man's GPS.


Prices on those in the years 1958 to 1962 were about
$15 for the K&E,
$25 for the Otis, and
$100 for the Curta. The Curta can be found on sale now for about $500 to $1000, varying over the years.
Add $100 if you have the original Curta orange instruction book. [I don't]