Loss of archives of Messrs Hewlett and Packard

[qu1j0t3]

Well, this is unfortunate:

The Tubbs fire  consumed the collected archives of William Hewlett and
David Packard, the tech  pioneers who in 1938 formed an electronics company in a
Palo Alto garage with  $538 in cash.
More  than 100 boxes of the two men’s writings, correspondence, speeches
and other  items were contained in one of two modular buildings that burned to
the ground  at the Fountaingrove headquarters of Keysight Technologies.
Keysight, the  world’s largest electronics measurement company, traces its
roots to HP and  acquired the archives in 2014 when its business was split from
Agilent  Technologies — itself an HP spinoff.

http://bit.ly/2yd6Z2G

[Mr. Scram]

That's bad news. Even though it might financially not be the biggest disaster, having history lost is arguably the greatest loss there is.

[cdev]

How the hell could they have been so stupid not to protect these papers better?

[Mr. Scram]

How the hell could they have been so stupid not to protect these papers better?

Fires are unforgiving. Even in a fire safe, you only have a limited period of time before the fire starts burning through. You really need something like a bunker, and in that case a fire might destroy it inside out.

[tggzzz]

Please don't split the same conversation across multiple sub forums. You will miss gems like this: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/hewlett-packard-historical-archives-destroyed-in-santa-rosa-fires/msg1335977/#msg1335977

[Mr. Scram]

Please don't split the same conversation across multiple sub forums. You will miss gems like this: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/hewlett-packard-historical-archives-destroyed-in-santa-rosa-fires/msg1335977/#msg1335977

That's a job for moderation and/or forum rules, not quite for us.

[tggzzz]

Don't be silly; this is courtesy, not something heinous that requires moderation!

[qu1j0t3]

I don't read all the forums so wasn't aware of the other thread. In any case, it would make sense for discussion to proceed there rather than here. It was courteous of tggzzz to point out its existence.

[Mr. Scram]

Don't be silly; this is courtesy, not something heinous that requires moderation!

I've noticed before that there is a plethora of threads on similar or the same subject. This is quite different from other forums and apparently it's not considered a problem. There doesn't seem to be a policy on combining the discussion into a single thread, which I would personally prefer. Moderation isn't always about heinous things, it's often about supplying a framework.

Thanks for posting about the other thread, though

[qu1j0t3]

Yes, it looks like a useful moderation feature here would be "close thread and redirect". Oh well.

[Mr. Scram]

Yes, it looks like a useful moderation feature here would be "close thread and redirect". Oh well.

Or even merge threads. Now, information gets spread over various threads and people often angrily get pointed towards the search function.

To be fair, making sure all information gets merged into one thread takes a fair bit of active moderation and it doesn't appear to me that Dave and friends want to go there. Pros and cons, I guess.

[tggzzz]

I don't read all the forums so wasn't aware of the other thread. In any case, it would make sense for discussion to proceed there rather than here. It was courteous of tggzzz to point out its existence.

I don't read the other subforums per se.

I find it quick and convenient to use the two links at the top left, just under the "Hello X" - first the "new replies" for anything I'm likely to be interested in, then the "unread posts" to see if there are any new topics that might interest me, finally clicking the "mark all messages as read" button. YMMV, of couse.

[nctnico]

How the hell could they have been so stupid not to protect these papers better?

Fires are unforgiving. Even in a fire safe, you only have a limited period of time before the fire starts burning through. You really need something like a bunker, and in that case a fire might destroy it inside out.

Not to mention mold or silver fish if you get the temperature and humidity wrong.

[IanB]

Many people seem to forget that if there is something interesting to post then it will have been interesting to other people as well and mostly likely already posted about. Isn't it a bit of hubris to think that you are the first and only person to post about something newsworthy? If you come across something notable you should look and see who may already have started a thread on it before starting a thread of your own.

[Mr. Scram]

Many people seem to forget that if there is something interesting to post then it will have been interesting to other people as well and mostly likely already posted about. Isn't it a bit of hubris to think that you are the first and only person to post about something newsworthy? If you come across something notable you should look and see who has already started a thread on it before starting a thread of your own.

While true, it's also problematic to ask people to exhaustively search the forums. These threads were both posted at roughly the same time in two separate forums. Many people visit some parts frequently and others rarely. There also are peak periods in which the rate of new posts appearing is huge.

[Mr. Scram]

Not to mention mold or silver fish if you get the temperature and humidity wrong.

Despite this, paper seems to be one of the more reliable storage mediums. Digital data is much harder to reliably store. Not just become bits tend to rot, but also because the systems required to read the data go obsolete and disappear. This is already becoming a big problem and will only get worse in the future.

[qu1j0t3]

No, not hubristic at all. I'm not a moderator, but I think all the meta-posting here has already done everything that it can usefully do. And any non-meta posting should be on the other thread.

[Mr. Scram]

No, not hubristic at all. I'm not a moderator, but I think all the meta-posting here has already done everything that it can usefully do. And any non-meta posting should be on the other thread.

Why on the other thread? Is it whichever was first? Or has the most posts so far? Or is there some other metric that should define which thread gets to be the "main" thread?

That's the problem with it not being an actual rule. Different people are going to have different views on the matter and some will just not care at all.

[qu1j0t3]

I don't disagree, but given the surprisingly high emotions expressed, I'm happy to defer to the other thread this time. We're not going to solve the (generally hard) problems of moderation right here.

[qu1j0t3]

Also I am looking forward to returning to vintage equipment discussion. I recently received a Tek 453 diverted from dumpster (!!!) and I will be posting pictures and a condition report soon.

[Mr. Scram]

Also I am looking forward to returning to vintage equipment discussion. I recently received a Tek 453 diverted from dumpster (!!!) and I will be posting pictures and a condition report soon.

"To divert from dumpster." I have to remember that terminology

[qu1j0t3]

An increasingly vital activity, it seems.