HP and the Surveying industry

[Sylvain Cote]

About a year ago I was researching the web for 41 stuff on Surveying.
I found several interesting pieces of informations but one of them was standing out
and I just realized that I have never posted the link here.

The article relate the history of the relations between the HP calculators division,
third party manufacturers and the surveying industry. Very interesting reading ...

So here it is: The End of An Era, POB Magazine, October 1, 2004.

Have a great reading ...

Sylvain

PS: I have extracted the companies and the peoples mentioned in the article.

Companies
The Lietz Co. sold to Sokkia (Sokkisha, Japan) sold to Topcon (Japan)
Datacom Software Research (DSR), New Zealand morphed to Trimble (New Zealand)
Surveyors Module Inc. (SMI, Tennessee, USA)
Hayes Instrument Co. (USA)
Firmware Specialists Inc. (FSI, Corvallis, Oregon, USA)
Corvallis Microtechnology (CMT, 1984, Corvallis, Oregon, USA)
Tripod Data Systems (TDS, 1987, Corvallis, Oregon, USA)

Peoples (Lietz, Sokkia & DSR)
Bob Martin, vice president-products for Lietz,
Stanley Trent, software developper for The Lietz Co.
Mike Beckingham, managing director of Sokkia's Australian
Alan Townsend, manager of Datacom Software Research, New Zealand

Peoples (SMI, Hayes, FSI, TDS, CMT)
Stanley Trent, created the company Surveyors Module Inc. (SMI)
Harold Hayes, created the company Hayes Instrument Co. (investor in SMI)
Dave Conklin, co-founder of Firmware Specialists (ex HP)
Steve Chou, co-founder of Firmware Specialists (ex HP)
David Lin, co-founder (1984) of CMT (ex HP)
Bernie Musch, co-founder (1987) of Tripod Data Systems (ex HP)
Steve Chou, co-founder (1987) of Tripod Data Systems (ex HP)