PHOTO: (click on photo to enlarge) Thomas Kraemer, "Printing Enters the Jet Age, How today's computer printers came to eject microscopic dots with amazing precision," American Heritage Invention & Technology, Spring 2001, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 18-27, cover and table of contents
I've written on Hewlett-Packard inkjet printers before. (See previous posts History of HP inkjet printers in American Heritage Invention & Technology 2/19/12) and HP breakup making Bill and Dave spin in their graves (9/11/15), which includes my previous letter to the editor: Thomas Kraemer, "HP breakup could harm economy," Gazette-Times, Sep. 11, 2015, p. A9)
Therefore, I was delighted to hear a CNBC cable TV Wall Street reporter Jim Cramer praise the new HP 3-D printer technology, which prompted me to write the following letter to the editor of the newspaper in the town where the HP inkjet printer was invented:
I was saddened to see the recently spun off HP Inc. occupying only a portion of the old Hewlett-Packard site in Corvallis when I was driven there by a new car dealer to see some cars that had overflowed his lot.
I was heartened on Jul. 19, 2016 to hear the respected CNBC Wall Street reporter Jim Cramer say publically he had seen the new HP Inc. 3-D printers and he was confident they would dominate all of the emerging competitors.
I no longer own any HP stock and do not plan to buy it on this news, but as a private citizen I hope that both the mid-Valley region and Corvallis HP Inc. will prosper from the promising new technology of 3-D printing.
I am hopeful because Hewlett-Packard has come back to life before in Corvallis, first in the 1980's when HP's handheld calculator sales stagnated shortly after the factory had been moved to Corvallis in the 1970's, and then HP built the first portable computers with inkjet printers, which had originally been designed for battery-powered calculators and electronic instruments connected via an HP network.
(Quoted from Thomas Kraemer, "High hopes for HP," Corvallis Gazette times Mid-Valley Sunday edition, July. 24, 2016, p. A10)
PHOTO: Given that the first non-founder CEO of HP, John Young, graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in electrical engineering in 1954, and his strategy was to locate HP divisions near universities to help recruit engineering talent, it makes sense that the Hewlett-Packard calculator factory and research lab were moved to Corvallis, Oregon in 1975, as first reported in the local newspaper story by John Atkins, "H-P executive predicts 700 new jobs," Gazette-Times Aug. 8, 1974, p. 2. (See previous posts HP breakup making Bill and Dave spin in their graves (8/11/15) , Don't Cali-fornicate Oregon and HP annexation history (6/14/12) and HP and Corvallis newspaper history (3/11/09) about the move of the Hewlett-Packard calculator division to Corvallis in 1975)
See the following links and previous posts:
- History of HP inkjet printers in American Heritage Invention & Technology 2/19/12)
- Paul Wallich, "DIY Light-Based 3D Printing," IEEE Spectrum, July 2016 print issue, spectrum.ieee.org posted online Jun 24, 2016 as "The Trials of Turning a Digital Light Projector Into an Ultraviolet 3-D Printer" -- describes the author's home-built 3-D printer and the technology issues he had to solve
- HP inkjet printer pioneer Niels Nielsen plays in retirement (5/6/16)
- The new car dealer, mentioned in my letter above, who sold me the Subaru car that I show in a photo in my previous post: Why do I own two cars despite being too blind to drive anymore? (11/23/15), which I answer, "Although I am too blind to drive anymore, I am fortunate to still be wealthy enough to own (two) cars, which I let other people use when they drive me to the store, doctor or dentist appointments. If I need to save money in the future, I can use the Dial-A-Bus service or the city bus, but the nearest bus stop is nearly a mile away and I have become too paralyzed to walk that far."
