[time-nuts] HP Stories: Battery Chargers, and a fading idolization of HP

[Bob Albert]

 Well lately I have been disappointed with the quality of writing of the manuals.  Not just HP, but I do expect better from them.  Typos, poor grammar, occasionally poor content.  Very little said about errors that appear on screen, for instance.
Sometimes I wonder if the circuits and software are of the same caliber.  My early HP documentation was much better, of course for simpler units.
Still, the stuff is very good and I am happy to have it.  Even better, HP has set an example that others feel they need to follow.
Bob
    On Saturday, February 9, 2019, 3:00:25 PM PST, paul swed <paulswedb at gmail.com> wrote:  
 
 Great story and like all things as you get to know them realities sink in.
The great thing is getting past what you thought and appreciating that
things work and have long lives.
Have to say I always enjoyed reading the HP and Tek manuals because as an
outsider you did learn. Granted I normally dug in deep because I end up
with a $25 scope by the pound or other widget for $25.
That said today what are schematics. You don't ever find them anymore nor
technical write ups. Because you are not supposed to fix the gear. Not good
for business. So I end up reverse engineering many things.
Still a good feeling when whatever it is comes back to life.
But back to HP those manual give great insights. I have picked up many
manuals just out of reading interest.
Thanks again Hugh.
Paul
WB8TSL



On Sat, Feb 9, 2019 at 4:07 PM Adrian Godwin <artgodwin at gmail.com> wrote:

> The schematics are so good - easy to read, lots of context. Even some
> off-board parts shown so you can see where the signal ends up. Notes about
> the function and adjustment. You can learn a lot from them. Manuals were
> worth having.
>
> So many of today's schematics are little more than a netlist : a bunch of
> fragmented sections with no way to find how they link up (maybe net names
> but you can't tell if they have 2 ends or several). Useless even for
> troubleshooting, let alone education.
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 9, 2019 at 6:08 PM Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk>
> wrote:
>
> > Hugh,
> >
> > I notice your design, like all other HP designs I have seen from
> > that era, operates with a very high margin for low mains voltage.
> >
> > Do you happen to remember what HP's design criteria were for this ?
> >
> > --
> > Poul-Henning Kamp      | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
> > phk at FreeBSD.ORG        | TCP/IP since RFC 956
> > FreeBSD committer      | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
> > Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by
> incompetence.
> >
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