Piecing together an HP9880 (Tony Duell) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

10 Dec 2012

Spot on. The video in question is part of a bulk donation from an HP training centre. Its
one of approximately 150 such titles in the TNMOC archive. They were distributed on
U-matic and later VHS. Nearly all, even our UK-based set, are NTSC encoded. We have a
little side project to dub them down to digital as a good 50% or more of this stock suffer
from sticky tape syndrome. Even with periodic baking, the material is under threat of
decay.

I should note here, the TNMOC material was not donated with broadcast rights attached, but
simply as a research resource. We don't have blanket coverage to YouTube the lot at
present. All access will therefore have to treated as a normal research request. I'll
happily relay all research requests back to the museum, though, and facilitate. 

Meanwhile, if any of you have the right contacts with HP to provide blanket YouTube
publication rights please put them onto me and I'll try and get something sorted with
our trustees. 

--Colin

Steve Lafferty <steve at tronola.com> wrote:

...
 At 05:53 PM 12/10/2012, you wrote:
 > I find that last statement farily hard ot
beleive. The HP9880 awas 
> introduced in 1974, video tape recording, while possible, was not common 
> then. Are we talking about the same machine? 
--- HP had an early and innovative television operation. They used it to offer an
extensive library of training programs to customers, as well as their own personnel. If I
recall correctly, it helped communicate the "HP Way" to their far-flung
divisions, around the World. In the 1972 catalog, they already had a whole library of
video tape training programs. A photo there shows what looks like a Sony 1/2"
reel-to-reel video recorder, like the ones which I remember seeing in my college days. Of
course, the original Hewlett Packard company was very different from the modern day HP
computer company. Much of the original operation was spun off as Agilent Technologies in
1999. No doubt, that is where the ghosts of Bill and Dave prefer to hang out, these days
:)

Sorry to go on about this side-topic but their innovative commitment to television content
production is one of the (many) things which always struck me as making HP special.

Steve L. 