[time-nuts] HP 5360A History?

[Richard (Rick) Karlquist]

This product came out in the early '70's when I was working
for Boeing.  The company bought several and they were
very popular.  This was an amazing advance for the time,
to be able to measure short term stability so easily.
This was before HPIB, so you couldn't easily connect a
counter to a computer.
As far as reliability is concerned, at least the unit
I used never had any problems.  Everyone loved it.

Fast forward to 1979.  I get hired by the HP Santa
Clara Division.  I didn't work in one of the frequency
counter sections, but they were located right next to
me and I interacted with them during donut time.  (This
was during the time that HP famously served free
donuts at coffee break time).

To my shock, I found that everyone at HP hated the 5360.
I guess the complexity was a resource hog.  It was
developed at least 10 years before PC-CAD systems came
to Santa Clara, so the schematic was hand drawn and
the PC board layout was with mylar tape.  The boards
were hand loaded and wave soldered.  I did a 100 IC
board that way with 8 layers and the checking alone
took a whole week.

It seemed to be lumped with a hated logic analzyer
that was derisively referred to as the "logic furnace".

It might have been one of those "image" products that
made Bill Hewlett look good but the division loses
money on it.  The 5071 was one of those, although
the division didn't actually lose money on it.
They just made less than they ostensibly could have
on their preferred products.

Rick

On 4/13/2016 9:38 AM, John Ackermann N8UR wrote:
> I was browsing through the HP Journal archives and came across the May,
> 1969 issue, dedicated to the new 5360A Computing Counter -- "An
> Electronic Counter for the 1970s!"
>
> I don't recall hearing much about these in time-nuts lore.  I can guess
> from the Journal articles that it was a beast to keep running and was
> very expensive (500 ICs and a 10A 5V power supply).
>
> Is anyone here familiar with the story of this product?
>
> John
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