a preserved era
Message #1 Posted by Eric Lundgren on 2 Apr 2005, 1:08 a.m.
Hey all,
The neatest thing happened this week, I met the guy in charge of our wind tunnels at university. A prof led me down there on a mission to get mat'ls and shop access. When we walked through the supersonic tunnel shop, I had flashes of my childhood. I imagined the brown cases used by 41's as I was met by the crisply neat hand-made bookshelf wrapped around the desk of the aging engineer in command. An hp I couldn't identify sat on the desk. It looked like a 65 with a light tan case. Mark's Handbook, Peery, and Rourke's formulas for stress and strain were among the 150+ books shelved. These books could refresh you on the formulas for notch sensitivity, and an entire era of short-sleeved NASA engineers. I thought of Kelly Johnson in Burbank, growling at engineers suffocating in smoke filled rooms working sleeve-to-sleeve on "hiding" the U2 from Russian sky-eyes.
My father was one of them, of the era at least, I remember the red graphic of the hp user manuals, the mag-strips, the structured thought. Trips (EVENTS) to buy the new super hand helds, followed by a grand dinner out.
The first HP laptop, the conical teeth of the printer guide wheels, all great memories. *Don't waste printer paper!* I'd love to go back, but we've got something now.
Right? The 33s and 49g+ might have some flaws, but they're growing on me. My 32sii trained me well to be conscious of wastefull memory allocation. So, while the 33s may have a large var/ram ratio, its got some strong points too.
Klaus had some great drive earlier this week. I'd love to participate in exploiting the 33s for all we can squeeze out of it.
Anyone know of a San Diego hp club? If not, anyone interested in scraping one up?
At worst, I'm very happy to have the museum to check in on.
Eric
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