[time-nuts] HP 5360A History?

[paul swed]

All of my 5360s use wire wrap

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 2:45 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist <
richard at karlquist.com> wrote:

> 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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