Test Equipment Anonymous

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 3:50 pm

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 1:09 pm

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:50 am I don't think that's a rebrand. It has been described as gaming as far back as 2005 when I worked for a dodgy gambling outfit.

Far longer than that. I'm sure it was described as gaming in Regency times at least, and the participants were called gamesters. It was carried to ridiculous lengths and large estates were known to change hands on a turn of the cards.

Beat me to it.

Nonetheless I claim gurgle is attempting to avoid discussion that it is allowing gambling apps.

I too have never seen the point of gambling, except once. In the days after brexit I enquired what odds they would offer that the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" would exist in 20 years time. The off-the-cuff answer was probably 2:1. If it had been 10:1 I would have placed a bet.

But why would gambling attract us? We get the same kicks from GAS on fleabay and at hamfests.

Gambling is a fool's game.

My father used to put all his money into premium bonds because he thought it was a better deal than the interest he would have got if he invested wisely. I think at one point he had £180k in there and was earning a whopping £200 a month out of it averaged over a year. At the crappy interest rate at the time he would have made £375 a month just leaving it somewhere to rot. Of course one year he won NOTHING.

I don't think he realised that the money he put in was making NS&I more money than he was getting.

I point out to gamblers, e.g. the national lottery, that they are buying a dream. That's fine by me.

If they don't realise that and act accordingly, they are incorrigible fools.

After all, we live in glass/GAS houses.

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 8:58 pm
Gambling is a fool's game.

Not if you are a bookie, or turf accountant, as they are euphemistically describe themselves. As a one time associate described it, it's the most glorious scheme for depriving the common man of his money ever divised. I disagreed and said that although it was good, government was a much better and complete racket. I see no need to extend the discussion into rival schemes of anarchism or social justice, whatever that may be.

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 8:58 pm Not if you'd to put all his money into premium bonds because he thought it was a better deal than the interest he would have got if he invested wisely. I think at one point he had £180k in there and was earning a whopping £200 a month out of it averaged over a year. At the crappy interest rate at the time he would have made £375 a month just leaving it somewhere to rot. Of course one year he won NOTHING.

I don't think he realised that the money he put in was making NS&I more money than he was getting.

"Wisely" is easily defined with hindsight. Had his guardian angel come to him and given him the next five years stock market listings, or had he happened to so place his investments for maximum effect, I doubt you would be describing him so uncharitably, and you wouldn't be messing round with us.

Premium Bonds have at some some stages been a perfectly reasonable, tax efficient form of investment, for those tuned up to it. It obviously carries risks. So do banks and government bonds.

Everything we do involves risk in some sense. Buying a house has proved pretty good in most parts of the UK. Marrying has worked out better for some than some than for others, etc. I've never been much drawn to football pools, games of chance, horse races and so on.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 9:34 pm I point out to gamblers, e.g. the national lottery, that they are buying a dream. That's fine by me.

If they don't realise that and act accordingly, they are incorrigible fools.

After all, we live in glass/GAS houses.

I can't see your point. 9 years ago I bought a lottery ticket and won £10 million. I've been spending it at a million a year all that time. 95% has been spent on women, booze and drugs, the rest I've wasted.

In a year's time, I'll buy another lottery ticket. It worked the last time.

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:17 pm

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 8:58 pm
Gambling is a fool's game.

Not if you are a bookie, or turf accountant, as they are euphemistically describe themselves. As a one time associate described it, it's the most glorious scheme for depriving the common man of his money ever divised. I disagreed and said that although it was good, government was a much better and complete racket. I see no need to extend the discussion into rival schemes of anarchism or social justice, whatever that may be.

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 8:58 pm Not if you'd to put all his money into premium bonds because he thought it was a better deal than the interest he would have got if he invested wisely. I think at one point he had £180k in there and was earning a whopping £200 a month out of it averaged over a year. At the crappy interest rate at the time he would have made £375 a month just leaving it somewhere to rot. Of course one year he won NOTHING.

I don't think he realised that the money he put in was making NS&I more money than he was getting.

"Wisely" is easily defined with hindsight. Had his guardian angel come to him and given him the next five years stock market listings, or had he happened to so place his investments for maximum effect, I doubt you would be describing him so uncharitably, and you wouldn't be messing round with us.

Premium Bonds have at some some stages been a perfectly reasonable, tax efficient form of investment, for those tuned up to it. It obviously carries risks. So do banks and government bonds.

Everything we do involves risk in some sense. Buying a house has proved pretty good in most parts of the UK. Marrying has worked out better for some than some than for others, etc. I've never been much drawn to football pools, games of chance, horse races and so on.

When it comes to "turf accountants", I've always liked the most appropriate name "Ladbrokes".
Of course, they don't just stick to sending "lads" broke, they are quite happy to do the same to lasses, too!
As an amusing name, it is up there with "Wayne Kerr", & the old US company "Blonder Tongue".

vk6zgo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:31 pm

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:17 pm

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 8:58 pm
Gambling is a fool's game.

Not if you are a bookie, or turf accountant, as they are euphemistically describe themselves. As a one time associate described it, it's the most glorious scheme for depriving the common man of his money ever divised. I disagreed and said that although it was good, government was a much better and complete racket. I see no need to extend the discussion into rival schemes of anarchism or social justice, whatever that may be.

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 8:58 pm Not if you'd to put all his money into premium bonds because he thought it was a better deal than the interest he would have got if he invested wisely. I think at one point he had £180k in there and was earning a whopping £200 a month out of it averaged over a year. At the crappy interest rate at the time he would have made £375 a month just leaving it somewhere to rot. Of course one year he won NOTHING.

I don't think he realised that the money he put in was making NS&I more money than he was getting.

"Wisely" is easily defined with hindsight. Had his guardian angel come to him and given him the next five years stock market listings, or had he happened to so place his investments for maximum effect, I doubt you would be describing him so uncharitably, and you wouldn't be messing round with us.

Premium Bonds have at some some stages been a perfectly reasonable, tax efficient form of investment, for those tuned up to it. It obviously carries risks. So do banks and government bonds.

Everything we do involves risk in some sense. Buying a house has proved pretty good in most parts of the UK. Marrying has worked out better for some than some than for others, etc. I've never been much drawn to football pools, games of chance, horse races and so on.

When it comes to "turf accountants", I've always liked the most appropriate name "Ladbrokes".
Of course, they don't just stick to sending "lads" broke, they are quite happy to do the same to lasses, too!
As an amusing name, it is up there with "Wayne Kerr", & the old US company "Blonder Tongue".

I used to have customers called Jack Pratt and another called Wayne Kerr

vk6zgo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:31 pm
As an amusing name, it is up there with "Wayne Kerr", & the old US company "Blonder Tongue".

Old? They still exist.

https://www.blondertongue.com/about-us/

MED6753 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 1:14 am

vk6zgo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:31 pm
As an amusing name, it is up there with "Wayne Kerr", & the old US company "Blonder Tongue".

Old? They still exist.

https://www.blondertongue.com/about-us/

They used to advertise in the US magazines I bought from time to time back in the 1960s.
From memory, at that time, they made various things to do with broadcast TV receiving, like tuners & I seem to remember, antenna rotators.
I hadn't seen any reference to them for years, so didn't realise they still existed, as do Wayne Kerr, who I also thought extinct.

A friend of mine has sent me this link:

https://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/

Some examples (NAWTS):

cordless ultrasonic cutter (kickstarter)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/32 ... m=referral


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RGMDHS8/?t ... ag=default



I suppose, you'll get the idea.

vk6zgo wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 4:19 am

MED6753 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 1:14 am

vk6zgo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:31 pm
As an amusing name, it is up there with "Wayne Kerr", & the old US company "Blonder Tongue".

Old? They still exist.

https://www.blondertongue.com/about-us/

They used to advertise in the US magazines I bought from time to time back in the 1960s.
From memory, at that time, they made various things to do with broadcast TV receiving, like tuners & I seem to remember, antenna rotators.
I hadn't seen any reference to them for years, so didn't realise they still existed, as do Wayne Kerr, who I also thought extinct.

Wang was a significant computer company in the 80s. They made a very successful word processing system. They foundered when they went into mini computers.

They had a support operation called Wang Care.

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:17 pm Not if you are a bookie, or turf accountant, as they are euphemistically describe themselves. As a one time associate described it, it's the most glorious scheme for depriving the common man of his money ever divised. I disagreed and said that although it was good, government was a much better and complete racket. I see no need to extend the discussion into rival schemes of anarchism or social justice, whatever that may be.

Well they're middle-men injecting themselves into the process and reaping all the benefits and abstracting the risk away. They are not gamblers as such but facilitators which is the correct position to be in generally if you are in the financial services market, legitimately or otherwise. I work for a facilitator during the day on the more legitimate side of things.

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:17 pm "Wisely" is easily defined with hindsight. Had his guardian angel come to him and given him the next five years stock market listings, or had he happened to so place his investments for maximum effect, I doubt you would be describing him so uncharitably, and you wouldn't be messing round with us.

I would have treated him with the same level of disdain that I would have because I know he would have frittered it away as he did with everything else. On top of that I have no respect for chance nor any opinion of someone's outcome there. It's just moot. It is what it is. To change my judgement would show little conviction and moral bankruptcy.

As for "messing around with us", why would that be based on wealth?

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:17 pm Premium Bonds have at some some stages been a perfectly reasonable, tax efficient form of investment, for those tuned up to it. It obviously carries risks. So do banks and government bonds.

They are a terrible investment. They are based on probability. Risk is poorly understood thing. In fact there is a whole financial discipline based around ATR (attitude to risk) which covers this at a meta-level and will probably suggest you're a poor investor based on the heuristics around that and thus not worth bothering with (i.e. the middle man isn't going to make a cut from you). As for the tax efficiency, that's a marketing tool really because it's probably better to pay the tax and earn a lot more with some determinism around it.

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:17 pm Everything we do involves risk in some sense. Buying a house has proved pretty good in most parts of the UK. Marrying has worked out better for some than some than for others, etc. I've never been much drawn to football pools, games of chance, horse races and so on.

Yes and no. You can choose to diversify risk to reduce the total aggregate risk you are exposed to which is the correct approach in investment terms. Also most risk can be nearly entirely eliminated with some research and evaluating what markets you want to enter at any point in time. It requires you to be able to model things though.

Rule 1 in financial services: If someone is selling you a product, it's worth nothing because if it was they'd be collecting all the gains themselves.

Current diversification here is moving my assets into three distinct pools. 40% are in high interest low risk savings account (5.2%), 30% are in defence ETF which is low risk aggregated and 30% in two higher risk investments. I could buy a house with the money but it's making more cash than the house would if I owned it minus the rent, including inflation. And I wouldn't have 60% of the assets then.

vk6zgo wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 4:19 am

MED6753 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 1:14 am

vk6zgo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:31 pm
As an amusing name, it is up there with "Wayne Kerr", & the old US company "Blonder Tongue".

Old? They still exist.

https://www.blondertongue.com/about-us/

They used to advertise in the US magazines I bought from time to time back in the 1960s.
From memory, at that time, they made various things to do with broadcast TV receiving, like tuners & I seem to remember, antenna rotators.
I hadn't seen any reference to them for years, so didn't realise they still existed, as do Wayne Kerr, who I also thought extinct.

I'm not sure if they made antenna rotators. Channel Master was the "go to" for those back in the day. But BT made, and still makes, distribution amplifiers like these. Before cable TV my parents house had a roof top antenna and a BT distribution amplifier. And it was all 300 Ohm twin lead.

bd139 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 11:35 am

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:17 pm Not if you are a bookie, or turf accountant, as they are euphemistically describe themselves. As a one time associate described it, it's the most glorious scheme for depriving the common man of his money ever divised. I disagreed and said that although it was good, government was a much better and complete racket. I see no need to extend the discussion into rival schemes of anarchism or social justice, whatever that may be.

Well they're middle-men injecting themselves into the process and reaping all the benefits and abstracting the risk away. They are not gamblers as such but facilitators which is the correct position to be in generally if you are in the financial services market, legitimately or otherwise. I work for a facilitator during the day on the more legitimate side of things.

I see them in part as gamblers who have things worked out in their favour. For instance a £5,000 bet on a 200:1 donkey in the Grand National would most likely be a daft 5 grand, but there's a possibility that it might win, and that has happened. The bookie could be cleaned out. He can either refuse the bet, or accept it and lay it off to another bookie with deeper pockets

bd139 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 11:35 am

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:17 pm
"Wisely" is easily defined with hindsight. Had his guardian angel come to him and given him the next five years stock market listings, or had he happened to so place his investments for maximum effect, I doubt you would be describing him so uncharitably, and you wouldn't be messing round with us.

I would have treated him with the same level of disdain that I would have because I know he would have frittered it away as he did with everything else. On top of that I have no respect for chance nor any opinion of someone's outcome there. It's just moot. It is what it is. To change my judgement would show little conviction and moral bankruptcy.

As for "messing around with us", why would that be based on wealth?

It was something of a jest, but large amounts of money change people's perception of things, and very often bring out the worst in us. People rarely question success.

bd139 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 11:35 am

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:17 pm Premium Bonds have at some some stages been a perfectly reasonable, tax efficient form of investment, for those tuned up to it. It obviously carries risks. So do banks and government bonds.

They are a terrible investment. They are based on probability. Risk is poorly understood thing. In fact there is a whole financial discipline based around ATR (attitude to risk) which covers this at a meta-level and will probably suggest you're a poor investor based on the heuristics around that and thus not worth bothering with (i.e. the middle man isn't going to make a cut from you). As for the tax efficiency, that's a marketing tool really because it's probably better to pay the tax and earn a lot more with some determinism around it.

They've been a good investment for people paying the highest rate of tax and at times when the mean return on them was favourable. That's not many people or many times.

bd139 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 11:35 am

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:17 pm Everything we do involves risk in some sense. Buying a house has proved pretty good in most parts of the UK. Marrying has worked out better for some than some than for others, etc. I've never been much drawn to football pools, games of chance, horse races and so on.

Yes and no. You can choose to diversify risk to reduce the total aggregate risk you are exposed to which is the correct approach in investment terms. Also most risk can be nearly entirely eliminated with some research and evaluating what markets you want to enter at any point in time. It requires you to be able to model things though.

Rule 1 in financial services: If someone is selling you a product, it's worth nothing because if it was they'd be collecting all the gains themselves.

Question asked by a young man joining a firm of stockbrokers, "Where are the customers' yachts"? Share tipsters and racing tipsters have the same ring about them. If they know that much why don't they just buy the shares or back the horses? There are more subtle versions of share and racing tipsters.

Playing around with Op-Amps:

"HP's CEO spells it out: You're a 'bad investment' if you don't buy HP supplies"

Source:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/19/ ... ls_it_out/

I hope, they all go to hell and burn.

BU508A wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 11:01 am "HP's CEO spells it out: You're a 'bad investment' if you don't buy HP supplies"

Source:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/19/ ... ls_it_out/

I hope, they all go to hell and burn.

I'm still using my HP PSC750, which is probably 20 years old. The cartridges were obsoleted a few years ago, but I bought some black cartridges at a local auction, and still have two unused. Not planning on replacing it!

The new owner of VMWare, Broadcom, has frightened many CEO/CIOs by stating that they intend to concentrate on their most lucrative 600 customers.

The comments to that article are worth reading. The cartridges have 32 bytes of EPROM containing ID information and no kind of processing power. It's hard to see how that can carry malware. It's all B/S. Outright lying to the customers is a bad sign.

I can see that printer companies work to the Gillette model; sell the item for next to nothing and make your money on the consumables. So the printer with a low capacity cartridge costs £50 and a full capacity cartridge costs £50. They have counter mechanisms to limit the cartridge to a certain number of pages. Sometimes when the count is reached, the printer refuses to print and a message pops up with some nonsense about why this has been done to assure the quality of the printing experience.

Depending on the printer model, public spirited souls have produced fixes to stop this antisocial behaviour, by hardware and firmware mods. Other public spirited souls sell toner refill kits for low prices on ebay, complete with instructions on how to refill cartridges designed not to be refilled. Others sell compatible cartridges, and no doubt OEMs are constantly working to engineer their product so the third party cartridges are not compatible. I wonder what proportion of buyers don't buy official replacement cartridges. A woman in a local stationery store told me they made a lot of money on printer cartridges and she thought they were a rip-off.

I'd say that before buying a printer, it's important to find out if it can be made compatible with third party refills.

I can see why manufacturers want to lock customers in to their official consumables, but HP are going too far.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 2:22 pm
I'm still using my HP PSC750, which is probably 20 years old. The cartridges were obsoleted a few years ago, but I bought some black cartridges at a local auction, and still have two unused. Not planning on replacing it!

I believe those use inkjet cartridges. Just a note of caution. I've found to my cost, that unused inkjet cartridges can degrade and become useless, in the course of years.

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 2:26 pm The comments to that article are worth reading. The cartridges have 32 bytes of EPROM containing ID information and no kind of processing power. It's hard to see how that can carry malware. It's all B/S. Outright lying to the customers is a bad sign.

I can see that printer companies work to the Gillette model; sell the item for next to nothing and make your money on the consumables. So the printer with a low capacity cartridge costs £50 and a full capacity cartridge costs £50. They have counter mechanisms to limit the cartridge to a certain number of pages. Sometimes when the count is reached, the printer refuses to print and a message pops up with some nonsense about why this has been done to assure the quality of the printing experience.

Depending on the printer model, public spirited souls have produced fixes to stop this antisocial behaviour, by hardware and firmware mods. Other public spirited souls sell toner refill kits for low prices on ebay, complete with instructions on how to refill cartridges designed not to be refilled. Others sell compatible cartridges, and no doubt OEMs are constantly working to engineer their product so the third party cartridges are not compatible. I wonder what proportion of buyers don't buy official replacement cartridges. A woman in a local stationery store told me they made a lot of money on printer cartridges and she thought they were a rip-off.

I'd say that before buying a printer, it's important to find out if it can be made compatible with third party refills.

I can see why manufacturers want to lock customers in to their official consumables, but HP are going too far.

No arguments from me on that score! Great shame, all things considered. I suppose it is part of the "Rules of the Garage".

When I started out my company had an HP XY plotter that failed just before an important exhibition, twice. Both times HP found a replacement to tide us over. I remembered that plus the quality of my milkround interview at South Queensferry, and made certain decisions on that basis. How things change

At I remarked 10 years ago, HP is alive and well but it is called Agilent - oops Keysight.

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 2:37 pm

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 2:22 pm
I'm still using my HP PSC750, which is probably 20 years old. The cartridges were obsoleted a few years ago, but I bought some black cartridges at a local auction, and still have two unused. Not planning on replacing it!

I believe those use inkjet cartridges. Just a note of caution. I've found to my cost, that unused inkjet cartridges can degrade and become useless, in the course of years.

They do, and I'm expecting it. I'm slightly surprised I haven't seen any degradation so far. Same with my 2003 car, except I have recently had part of the exhaust replaced.

PCMag reviewed it in 2001, https://uk.pcmag.com/first-looks/31683/hp-psc-750 so it was designed before Fiorina et al had completely replaced the "HP Way".

This afternoon#s jobs: pay £2 tax bill and collect a Dataman S4 EPROM Programmer from the auction house.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 2:41 pm
No arguments from me on that score! Great shame, all things considered. I suppose it is part of the "Rules of the Garage".

When I started out my company had an HP XY plotter that failed just before an important exhibition, twice. Both times HP found a replacement to tide us over. I remembered that plus the quality of my milkround interview at South Queensferry, and made certain decisions on that basis. How things change

At I remarked 10 years ago, HP is alive and well but it is called Agilent - oops Keysight.

I'm sure there are changes in HP down to it being run by managers, rather than engineers and entrepreneurs, and worse, corporate chancers.

However, the computer and electronics markets have changed a lot over the years, and have generally become high volume, low margin and selling to less technically aware customers. When your company was using that plotter, it would have been a very expensive item, and was likely directly part of a salesman's quota. The company would probably have bought a lot of other HP kit - all high priced and high margin, possibly with support contracts. For HP to go the extra mile on the plotter, would have made the company much more disposed to choose HP between alternatives. Some people in HP quite possibly knew people in your company through a working relationship, and had anyway worked for similar companies, and would be sympathetic to those left high and dry before an important exhibition. All a bit different to call centre support, where you might eventually speak to someone who actually knew about the product, and even then the advice might be, "Nip down to Staples and buy another one".

ISTR a lengthy thread a couple of years back at The Other Place, where people were very unhappy with Agilent (or Keysight), for having no time for anyone but large customers.

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 3:32 pm

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 2:41 pm
No arguments from me on that score! Great shame, all things considered. I suppose it is part of the "Rules of the Garage".

When I started out my company had an HP XY plotter that failed just before an important exhibition, twice. Both times HP found a replacement to tide us over. I remembered that plus the quality of my milkround interview at South Queensferry, and made certain decisions on that basis. How things change

At I remarked 10 years ago, HP is alive and well but it is called Agilent - oops Keysight.

I'm sure there are changes in HP down to it being run by managers, rather than engineers and entrepreneurs, and worse, corporate chancers.

However, the computer and electronics markets have changed a lot over the years, and have generally become high volume, low margin and selling to less technically aware customers. When your company was using that plotter, it would have been a very expensive item, and was likely directly part of a salesman's quota. The company would probably have bought a lot of other HP kit - all high priced and high margin, possibly with support contracts. For HP to go the extra mile on the plotter, would have made the company much more disposed to choose HP between alternatives. Some people in HP quite possibly knew people in your company through a working relationship, and had anyway worked for similar companies, and would be sympathetic to those left high and dry before an important exhibition. All a bit different to call centre support, where you might eventually speak to someone who actually knew about the product, and even then the advice might be, "Nip down to Staples and buy another one".

ISTR a lengthy thread a couple of years back at The Other Place, where people were very unhappy with Agilent (or Keysight), for having no time for anyone but large customers.

That division had 5 engineers, so not large I also learned that salesmen knew how to sell cheap stuff and expensive stuff, and that there was a horrible gap where salesmen couldn't justify enough time to sell something and it wasn't cheap enough to be a mere departmental expense.

There have been changes, of course, but Bill and Dave always put the customer first.

There's a famous "Bill and Dave" story that illustrated that. Under time pressure, the first version of the HP2000 minicomputers was released too early, and customers complained. When Packard heard about it he left a memo on the Paul Ely's desk (the project manager) saying "Please ensure we do not release products until they meet the advertised specifications". That was, in HP terms, one hell of a rebuke. It illustrates HP's ethos that Ely framed the memo and hung it on the wall - and went on to have an excellent career in HP.

As for Agilent abandoning non-corporate customers, I think that is partly driven by consumer law

It was the HP3000, and by Spring 1973 Bill and Dave were well aware the project was in serious trouble. It was certainly in no fit state to ship. It had taken five years and cost $20 million to develop and speculation was rife that it would be cancelled. Ely was drafted in to fix it. Packard's memo was known as the "Wow Ouch" memo.

http://www.3kranger.com/HP3000/hp3000_history.shtm

The new management team, once in place, acted quickly. Production of the HP3000 was halted, and more importantly, the decision was made to recall the entire existing base of HP3000s.

At this time, Dave Packard sent a memo to the HP3000 team. It was only two lines long and said, essentially, that they would never again announce a product that did not then currently meet specifications. Its succinctness revealed how displeased Packard was with the outcome of the program.

Steve Vallender, the lab manager, made a copy for every member of the department. Before sending it out, he made a little comment on Packard's memo, scribbling the words "Wow" and "Ouch" in the margin. The memo was henceforth (and still is over 25 years later) referred to as the "Wow Ouch" memo.

Don't forget that Packard also said "Take risks. Ask big questions. Don't be afraid to make mistakes; if you don't make mistakes, you're not reaching far enough."

That was about 1991 when HP was doing badly particularly in the UNIX workstation market, but generally stagnating. Packard came back from retirement and found they had the products but release was held up by a series of committees, because no one wanted to be seen to make a mistake. By the time the product was released, it was out of date.

Interesting. I wonder where/how I picked up that Ely was the response rather than the cause.

The "take big risks" was the mantra of HPLabs, of course. I know of one engineer who was dinged because his work that was transferred to a division wasn't a big enough success.

This is standard MBA think from HP. There is a cycle which all large corporations enter the end game on.

So you start on the market with an innovative product which revolutionises the market. The HP LaserJet and DeskJet printers at the time of release were revolutionary. Obviously the market gets entered by other companies with a lesser reputation and you end up with market pressure aka competition. The entire market slowly descends into a state of progressive cost cutting because there is an exponential decay on the ROI of innovation so no gains are not seen. At that point your product is entirely commoditised. Innovation is at a dead end and the customers already have your product. The only tools you have left are cost cutting past the line of quality and rent seeking. HP have excelled on both fronts, much to the detriment of their customers. And that's where we are now; the self-given right of existence of the corporation demands that you are subject to it until the day you die.

I will say however that I have a mid-range HP LaserJet Pro all-in-one. That is an excellent printer but it's an office duty not a consumer printer. HP treat those printers with a little more respect because suddenly businesses stop buying 1000 at a time and go to Brother and that looks bad. I use only genuine HP toner in it because I expense it and have I think three full cartridges which should last a few years . When it eventually gives up I will evaluate the market then to see if HP's CEO has been booted out for screwing the company into the ground further and things have returned to sensibility.