Online Museum and Technical History of

The Hewlett-Packard Company

which later became Agilent Technologies

and now is Keysight Technologies

Electronic Test Equipment

revised May 10, 2020 Note: This site is privately owned and operated by Kenneth A. Kuhn and is not affiliated with either the Hewlett-Packard Company or Agilent Technologies or Keysight Technologies.



Copyright © 2003 - 2020 by Kenneth A. Kuhn. The contents of this site may be freely used by all. All that is asked is that proper credit be cited for any material used from this site.

A picture (taken in 2003) of me with Frisky (April, 1990 - Jan. 12, 2008 -- the seventh anniversary of Bill Hewlett's death) at my old shop table with an early vintage HP200B unit with rounded corners. I am wearing an HP shirt and the picture on the front is of the famous garage and you can barely make out the HP logo on the sleeve. Frisky was the official shop cat and oversaw all that went on. His odd posture is because he did not want his picture taken but I did. The record clearly shows that I won that contest. As you can see, I also use HP equipment in my work. These are not just museum pieces.

This is a picture of vintage HP oscillators, meters, and related equipment in my collection and is one of the pictures in the shop tour as described below.

Purpose of this web site This web site is devoted to the history of test equipment produced by the Hewlett-Packard Company which is now known as Agilent Technologies. I own a huge collection of vintage Hewlett-Packard test equipment, catalogs, equipment manuals, and Hewlett-Packard Journals. I own such classics as the HP200A, HP200B, HP200C, HP200D, HP200H, HP201B, HP202D, HP410A, HP500A, and many more (a rough count indicated over 450 pieces of which about 100 are duplicates). I also own probably one of the few still existing HP210A square wave generators.



My goal is for this web site to be your primary source for historical information on the Hewlett-Packard Company and their vintage test equipment and calculators whether the information is direct from me or via links to many other fine web sites I have found. Links to every major web site that I can find concerning the history of HP are also posted. I am always searching for new sites and will update the collection of links as I find them. Attention web masters of other HP related sites: I am always glad to add more links to this site so if your site is not listed then send me an email. I think it is a good idea for all HP history related sites to be interlinked so that anyone finding one site has access to all of them. Also, I welcome links to my site -- no need to ask permission -- just do it.



I believe there are a number of people who would like to know more about the history of the Hewlett-Packard Company if only this information were published somewhere. Years ago when I started this site I was amazed at how hard it was to find information about the Hewlett Packard Company. Information is available but not in one place - it takes a lot of work to put it all together and that is what I am attempting to accomplish here. Now there are a growing number of HP related web sites each specializing in a different aspect of HP and its history. A lot of information is now easily available through the collection of these web sites. My goal is a detailed and accurate history. I have invested a lot of time into studying the history of the company - this has become a side hobby related to my main hobby of electronics. I consider myself to be an amateur historian of the technical history of the Hewlett-Packard Company. This web site is my way of sharing my knowledge with all who care to know.



The Hewlett-Packard Company began as a test and measurement equipment company in 1939. In the 1960s they started building small computers to augment their test equipment. Because of their high reliability, demand for these computers exceeded expectations as businesses other than test and measurement firms began placing orders for them to run businesses instead of scientific equipment. The computer side of the business grew such that by the 1980s the majority of the profit was from computer sales. What had begun as a side business became the dominant business. In 1999 the test equipment division was spun off as Agilent Technologies and the Hewlett-Packard Company of today is only a computer products company. So, throughout this web site, when the company name, Hewlett-Packard, is used in reference to test equipment it refers to the original Hewlett-Packard Company which is now called Agilent Technologies.



About Me In my early years I was very fortunate to have a lot of exposure to test equipment manufactured by the Hewlett-Packard Company, Tektronix, General Radio, Fluke, and others. I had a very high appreciation of this equipment and never dreamed that someday I would own many of the classic instruments I used early in my career. It fascinated me to know how these companies were able to achieve incredible feats of measurement and signal generation that were otherwise impossible with my basic knowledge of electronics. I studied manuals of this equipment and spent many hours reverse engineering the concepts. In the process I learned much about engineering that is not generally taught in engineering schools although I try to illustrate these concepts to electrical engineering students I teach. I learned that the key to achieving what seems impossible is thinking about the problem from the right perspective rather than the obvious simplistic perspective. Analog electronic circuit design is my specialty and these companies taught me how to design electronics. In many ways I feel as though I have served an apprenticeship under them having worked with and studied their products so closely. I feel close in spirit to all of them but my favorite is the Hewlett-Packard Company. In the early 1980s I almost sent them my resume in hopes of joining their team as I felt that I was their type of electrical engineer. But, I decided instead that Alabama was my home. So my cats, HP collection, and I reside in what is known as the over the mountain community south of Birmingham, Alabama.

