Foreword

The Great Hewlett-Packard -- Giovanni Becattini

It has recently come to the attention of our co-Curators that this interesting overview of a selection of 20th Century Hewlett-Packard instrumentation has been published. To us, the technical thoroughness of the author, and the curiosity of his deconstruction and rehabilitation of a variety of HP instrumentation products reminds us vividly of Marc Mislanghe, our Founder of this website. Marc was a Sales Support engineer for Hewlett-Packard in France. In his later post-HP life, his mission was to accumulate a huge collection of HP products, we think some 665 test products and perhaps 80 calculator/computer units in his basement in SouthEast France. His vision was to create a "Measurements Museum." And he did accomplish the collection, but sadly, he died before he could realize his dream to build the actual facility. His sons were left to see the collection dismantled. It even included one of those 3000+ pound granite tables which were used in advanced metrology facilities for dimensional work with laser interferometers.

In the process of acquiring his vast basement collection, Marc used EBay and other sources. He spent years of his life rehabilitating and refurbishing hundreds of vintage instruments, as time allowed, to make them in top notch condition, performing to specifications. Then he authored this comprehensive documentation with extensive photography---which happened to be his serious lifetime hobby. The range of Marc's interest and obsessive drive to improve his collection can be seen by browsing other sections of this website. It includes a complete collection index, HP instrument history by decade, and technology overviews.

Perhaps most importantly was Marc's decision to begin adding a collection of personal HPMemoirs, written by HP personnel who lived the remarkable HP work culture. We co-Curators have continued that history of The HP Way of management and interpersonal relations. Each Memoir presents a very personal life journey, described by the HP authors who lived and worked in that management environment, and the value of the individual and teams. Altogether we have now archived 46 HPMemoirs, from top executives to the chief telephone operator, when the company ran with PBX operators in the 1950s.

So, when presented with documentation which provides an independent author who exhibits the same sort of curiosity of Founder Mislanghe, we determined that his insight into the operation and rehabilitation of a variety of vintage HP products was worthy of inclusion herewith.

Giovanni (Gianni) Becattini is an Italian engineer, born in Florence, Italy, in 1951, and is a graduate electronic engineer and pioneer entrepreneur.

At age sixteen he started a cooperation with CQ Elettronica the most important Italian magazine for amateur electronics. In 1973, he started the design of a computer, based on the first 8080 samples available in Italy. In 1975 he presented the first Italian microcomputer project and founded General Processor (formerly Micropi) the first company in Italy producing computers for personal use. In 1998 he founded AEP Ticketing Solutions, today a Modaxo company.

He is author of several books and publications, he still holds the role of AEP board member.

Becattini's publications extend well beyond this HP work. He has authored several other similar books covering the Tektronix product line, a book on Military Surplus instruments, and Motorcycles, Organs, and Early Radio, among other interests. A formidable life's work, all accessible on the Internet.

Because of its huge size (1209 pages and ~900 megabytes total), this publication is presented in three pdf files.

The other minor distraction is that the pagination of this product index does not correspond with the page numbers of the Adobe pdf file format. So we have included both for easier access. It should also be noted that among the featured HP instruments the author has sprinkled other militarized versions, and occasionally a competitive unit for comparison.

John Minck

HP Memories

This memory of Giovanni Becattini's career results from the work of the www.hpmemoryproject.org website of Marc Mislanghe, who with John Minck edited and published the original archive of Memoirs. After Marc's untimely death in 2014, Ken Kuhn has now assumed the custodianship with John, and together they will continue to expand the Memoirs section.

One of the main objectives in starting this website in 2011 was (and still is today) to get in touch with people who have worked at hp from the birth of the company up to today. We are interested in hearing your memories no matter what division or country you worked in, or whether you were in engineering, marketing, finance, administration, or worked in a factory. This is because all of you have contributed to the story of this unique and successful enterprise.

Your memories are treasure for this website. While product and technology are our main concern, other writings related to the company life are highly welcome, as far as they stay inside the hp Way guidelines.

Anybody Else? Please get in touch by emailing the webmaster on the Contact US link at http://www.hpmemoryproject.org