Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard (HP) is a large American technology company whose products include many types of computing and electronic devices as well as software and services.

HP was founded in 1939 by William Hewlett and David Packard[?] as a manufacturer of scientific instruments. Their first product was a precision audio oscillator[?] (their innovation was the use of a light bulb as temperature stabilized resistor in a critical portion of the circuit). Their first major customer was Disney, who bought several of these oscillators for generating sound effects in the movie Fantasia.

HP has been well known for a variety of products, including printers and oscilloscopes, and were famous for their pioneering range of calculators. They are now a large manufacturer of personal computers. On January 5, 1980 Hewlett-Packard announced the release of its first personal computer.

add more on HP way

mention fact that they were one of the founding companies of Silicon Valley

In March 2002, Hewlett Packard announced that the company would no longer produce calculators. It is hard for fans to fathom such decision to abandon a product HP was famous for.

HP technologies include:

• the HP-UX operating system
• the PA-RISC processor architecture
• the UDC (Utility Data Center)[?]
• OpenView[?] family of management software[?]

HP has merged with Compaq in 2002, in a controversial move.

Agilent Technologies Incorporated is the original instrument company founded by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in 1939. It was spun off from HP in 1999.

External Links

• The HP website (http://www.hp.com)
• Remembering Bill Hewlett (http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/IW010122hnhewlett/)