Hewlett-Packard history lost to Santa Rosa fires

One of Silicon Valley's most important historic archives, that of the Hewlett-Packard company, was destroyed in this month's Santa Rosa wildfires in California. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat blames the loss of the archives on a decision to remove them from vaults that used to house them. The paper archives, which hadn't yet …

[Oh Homer]

How ironic

I'm genuinely saddened by this, as it's a devastating blow to an important historical archive, but at the same time I can't help but marvel at the sheer irony of one of the founding computer corporations failing to digitise its most important documents.

On the other hand, it strikes me that if they really cared about those documents, they probably shouldn't have sold them in the first place. Frankly it seems like a very strange thing to sell. It'd be a bit like me selling my only copy of my only photograph of my best friend who died in a car crash.

It's bizarre, but somehow unsurprising, given the soulless mentality of Corporate America.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How ironic

Me too - genuinely saddened that is, especially as a long-time fan of HP calculators. I don't program much these days, but the HP-16C still gets an outing every now and again at work.

Just to note: the archive wasn't sold -- it was included in the assets that became Agilent when HP spun-off its test and measurement business, and then again when Agilent spun off Keysight. Ironically if the archive had been sold - or gifted - to a museum, it would probably have been better stored.

[Brian Miller]

Re: How ironic

I'm sure they made copies, but an original is still an original. When an original goes, it's gone.

How to protect against fire: don't store stuff in fire-prone areas in the first place.

[Jonathan Richards 1]

Re: How ironic

@Brian

What makes you sure they made copies? For that to be true, the archive would have had to have been photographically copied in an age before digitization. If you're going to copy paper documents, you have to put them on a photocopier, or microfilm them. If such a copy archive existed, I'd expect reports to have mentioned it. Sadly, it seems on the face of it that much important information has gone up in smoke. See icon ->

[Fatman]

Re: How ironic

Perhaps that was done in order to 'give cover' to an ill-fated cost cutting decision, which has resulted in their loss. I am sure that some lazy ass mangler is collecting his bonus for cutting costs by removing all of those original documents that old junk paper.

Hell, they were from more than 50 years ago, who really cares what information they may have contained.

[Mpeler]

Re: How ironic

Carly was brought in to destroy the HP Way, nit Whitman is in the process of completing that. Some say that John Young was actually "the beginning of the end".

"Keysight" is neither Key, nor has any "sight". (fl)Agilent is only one of many failed remnants of HPs former glory. The profound lack of care they took of these documents is only representative of the lack of care they and their greedy manglement give to what was left of the HP Way, and what is left of the various instrument divisions, which were once innovative, creative, and great as well.

Digital documents are no replacement for the originals. Especially as they can be modified, or, worse, omissions made either by intent or carelessness.

Having said all that, I wish health and a quick recovery for those affected by the fires. Lives are much, much more important than things...

[Anonymous Coward]

The unthinking hand of middle management...

I'm guessing some accountant-esque middle manager made the bonus-enhancing business case that the fireproof buildings were just too expensive to maintain, that the digitisation project should be put off for another year to make a 'very real and substantial' cost saving this year, and that the probability of anything bad happening to boxes of old, dry, irreplaceable and uninsurable paper that just happened to be priceless historical documents, stored in a non fire-proof building in an known area of wildfires was as close to zero as really made no odds. Except it wasn't. It never is.

Still, hopefully that middle manager whoever he or she may be, is fine, untroubled by guilt, smoke and fire - along with their shiny BMW. Because what value is history when you're an important part of the future (definitely Q4 and maybe even Q1 next year)?

[jake]

Minor nit, and a shameless plug (was: Re: The unthinking ::snip::)

"in an known area of wildfires"

Nit: The wildfires sweeping out of the hills and moving that far into suburbia is completely unprecedented and unexpected in this part of California. I've been paying attention to this kind of thing up here for over half a century, and I've never seen conditions even close to what happened three weeks ago. My insurance company is calling it "a 1000 year event".

The loss of life was horrendous (although nowhere near what we feared in the first few days), and people can't be replaced. Toast their memory, they and their families did nothing to deserve what happened. Yes, we lost a few very good wineries. Likewise other touristy bits & bobs. And many homes. But that's just "stuff". What can be will be rebuilt. And it's true, there are a couple hundred thousand acres of burned out scenery. Some roads are closed for the duration. Fires still smoulder, there is still smoke in the air in places. The winter rains will fix all that. It'll be green again before long.

However, (and here's the plug) ... Sonoma and Napa counties are open for business! So are Lake and Mendocino, even if they aren't as well known. Hotels are open, wineries are pouring, and restaurants are serving food. Please, come visit! You will be made as welcome as you always have been. If you had plans, don't put them off. If you didn't, perhaps consider it. (A long weekend in Sonoma has rejuvenated many a relationship ... and kicked off many more engagements. Don't say I didn't warn you.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Minor nit, and a shameless plug (was: The unthinking ::snip::)

Visit the US - you've got to be joking!

Police shooting folk, get locked up for profit, a corrupt justice system, theft and irradiation at the airport, run by corporations, and headed up by a fake-news spouting racist and fascist.

Not fucking likely.

[jake]

Re: Minor nit, and a shameless plug (was: The unthinking ::snip::)

Yep. All that and more. Really, it's actually much, much worse. I'm just trying to lure you to your doom. Everybody knows that anyone setting foot in the USA is bound to be returned home in a bodybag, or worse! In fact, there is actually nobody alive and free in the US, we're all dead or incarcerated! Every single one of us! Uphill both ways! In the snow! Barefoot! It's a totally, completely miserable existence here, without hope. Stay away! Stay away!

Honestly, ElReg should have a policy of forcing people to pass "Reality 101" before allowing them to post. Would drop the noise level at least an order of magnitude around here.

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: Minor nit, and a shameless plug (was: The unthinking ::snip::)

ElReg should have a policy of forcing people to pass "Reality 101" before allowing them to post.

Maybe the poster exaggerated, and Las Vegas style massacres, leaving 59 dead, over 500 injured, obviously don't happen every day, but it seems to me that recorded gun homicides of 10,000 and 100,000 shootings a year are pretty much established as fact.

325 million divided by 100,000 seems to make it a 1 in 3,250 likelihood of being shot in America. Maybe "Reality 101" says different?

All I know is that I'm not voluntarily going anywhere where there's a five times greater chance of being shot dead.

[PaulCharlton]

Re: Minor nit, and a shameless plug (was: The unthinking ::snip::)

It's much worse than that. The facts are:

- The USA has an death-rate by fire-arms which is 63x the UK (homicides and unintentional deaths excluding suicides).

- The USA has an intentional homicide rate which is 5.3x the UK.

[Arthur the cat]

Re: Minor nit, and a shameless plug (was: The unthinking ::snip::)

Everybody knows that anyone setting foot in the USA is bound to be returned home in a bodybag, or worse!

Yes, I went to the US to see the recent eclipse and they turned me into a newt!

Er, I got better.

Where's the Monty Python big foot icon?

[jelabarre59]

Re: Minor nit, and a shameless plug (was: The unthinking ::snip::)

Yep. All that and more. Really, it's actually much, much worse. I'm just trying to lure you to your doom. Everybody knows that anyone setting foot in the USA is bound to be returned home in a bodybag,..

And you're required to bring your own bodybag. Be sure to have it inspected by Fatherland Security when you enter.

[Oh Homer]

Re: "Visit the US - you've got to be joking!"

You're only seeing the flaws amplified by the media. While all true, it's nonetheless a sweeping generalisation that completely ignores the less sensationalist facets of reality. Like anywhere else, there are plenty of nice people and places in America.

[tiggity]

Re: Minor nit, and a shameless plug (was: The unthinking ::snip::)

The "1000 year event" and similar "n year events" are typically far more likely than your insurers say.

1. Reliable data does not go back far enough for that level of estimate. Even if climate change was not happening (or if you are someone who believes it does not exist) there is variability in weather / climate making predictions inaccurate on only a small subset of data.

2. Need to factor in human changes that make things more likely (e.g. lots of places have far higher flood risks than they used to as towns expand and asphalt / concrete means rainwater gets to rivers in a quick pulse compared to slower release when going through fields / forests). Wildfires are a natural event, there are lots of arguments that peoples attempts to manage fires / trees are part of the problem that has led to "mega fires"

3. Climate change - one of the many non fun features of climate change is (according to most models) an increase in "unusual" / "freak" weather events.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Minor nit, and a shameless plug (was: The unthinking ::snip::)

Climate change - one of the many non fun features of climate change is (according to most models) an increase in "unusual" / "freak" weather events.

Isn't it remarkable that although climate has changed fairly continuously since the Earth first had a climate, we're now facing an increase in freak weather events all attributable to human induced climate change? Presumably that's because there's "good" climate change (eg that caused by solar minima, volcanoes and the like), and "bad" climate change (anything happening now, which is all to do with people driving cars.

Given the utterly rotten predictive qualities of climate models, I don't put any store in these predictions, and the academic studies of extreme weather events appear to be appalling unscientific.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Minor nit, and a shameless plug (was: The unthinking ::snip::)

A "1000 year event" is only a populist way of trying to represent what insurers face which is a probability of 0.1% for an event occurring within a one year time-frame. And no, you don't need a thousand years of data to make that estimate either.

[I3N]

Such is legacy

Yes, completes the tragedy about everything that ever was Hewlett Packard.

[ecofeco]

Re: Such is legacy

I could not have said it better. Have an upvote.

[jake]

Somewhere ...

... Bill just handed Dave a bottle of brandy, and Dave said "I told you so!".

[Neoc]

Brings to mind...

"This file contains the complete set of papers, except for a number of secret documents, a few others which are part of still active files, a few others lost in the flood of 1967- Was 1967 a particularly bad winter?"

"No, a marvellous winter, we lost no end of embarrassing files."

[David Roberts]

Last traces of the original HP

Slowly being erased.

The monster that had the name in later years bore no resemblance to the original ethical business.

[Denarius]

In keeping with creeping western ignorance

corporate history can now be rewritten as required to show how brave ingenious accountants created HP...

[John Smith 19]

HP Test & Measurement arm was quite remarkably innovative in its time.

Wheather or not it still is is another matter. ...

Leaving the docs in a fireproof vault would have been good.

Gifting them to a technology museum (there must be a few in Silicon Valley) would have made them look good and probably been some kind of tax write off.

But no.

So now this stuff is (literally) up in smoke.

[Miss Lincolnshire]

Re: HP Test & Measurement arm was quite remarkably innovative in its time.

"Gifting them to a technology museum (there must be a few in Silicon Valley) would have made them look good and probably been some kind of tax write off."

HP is a technology museum

[Drew 11]

Idiots.

[ecofeco]

Removed them from the vault?!

Does anyone need more proof that Silly Valley is populated by fucking morons. Morons who want to control the world?

Dear god.