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The 30s
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| HP's first product, the 200A audio oscillator | ||
Following graduation as electrical engineers from Stanford University in 1934, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard go on a two-week camping and fishing trip in the Colorado mountains during which they become close friends. Bill continues graduate studies at MIT and Stanford while Dave takes a job with General Electric. With the encouragement of Stanford professor and mentor Fred Terman, the two decide to start a business "and make a run for it" themselves. Hewlett-Packard Company is founded January 1, 1939.
1938
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| The garage | ||
Dave and his wife Lucile move into the first floor flat of a house at 367 Addison Avenue, Palo Alto, California. Bill rents the shed behind the house, and Bill and Dave begin part-time work in the garage with $538 in working capital. The $538 consists of cash and a used Sears-Roebuck drill press.
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| 200A audio oscillator: | ||
Bill's study of negative feedback results in HP's first product — the resistance-capacitance audio oscillator (HP 200A), an electronic instrument used to test sound equipment. The oscillator uses an incandescent bulb as part of its wiring scheme to provide variable resistance, a breakthrough in oscillator design. The principle of feedback provides the foundation for other early HP products such as a harmonic wave analyzer and several distortion analyzers. The HP Model 200A is so named "because we thought the name would make us look like we'd been around for awhile," says Dave later.
The Walt Disney Company orders eight Model 200B oscillators. Disney engineers use the equipment to test the various channels, recording equipment and speaker systems in the twelve specially-equipped theaters that show Disney's innovative Fantasia in 1940.
1939
Bill and Dave formalize their partnership January 1, 1939. They decide the company's name with a coin toss.
Revenue: $5369. Employees: 2
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