Any idea what quantity that run was ?
On Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 2:31 PM Jeremy Nichols <
jn6wfo@...> wrote:
Making the decision on a ¡°lifetime buy¡± can be treacherous! I know of one specific case because I was there (at HP Santa Clara) when it happened, sometime in the 1970s. Someone determined that a particular HP-made IC was used only in obsolete equipment and, after making a lifetime buy of that chip, obsoleted the design. We, in HP¡¯s photomask group, dutifully obsoleted the tooling for that mask set.?
Sometime later, a product surfaced, still in ¡°support life,¡± and using that IC. Inventory was soon reduced to zero with customers demanding parts to fix their instruments. Fortunately, we had not destroyed the artwork masters and were able to create a one-off set of stepmasters, just enough for one run through IC fab. The resulting parts worked out to $1,000 each and that is what they charged the customers!?
Jeremy?
On Sun, Feb 28, 2021 at 9:32 AM Rick - WA6NDR <
nungester@...> wrote:
> Say, Rick, did you know Matt Hunton at HP Spokane Division?
Sorry no, but it could just be me not remembering.
> ...later versions of the 8902A did not use the F8 ... Do you know anything about that ...
Fairchild announced the F8 would become obsolete and HP made a projected lifetime purchase for all F8-based 890nx products. The estimates ended up being low and we ran out of F8 haredare, so the F8 assembly code was program-translated to another CPU but I forget which one. I wasn't involved in that effort but know the engineer that did it, who likewise still lives in Spokane, WA.
> I tried on mine with firmware 94.1991 and it didn't appear on any of those functions.
Thanks for trying. In 1983 I went on to other projects and had no idea HP production engineers were still doing firmware releases as late as 1991! Big surprise to me.
> ... the 11794A softpac ... how you can get the information from the 8902A keyboard?
Sorry but no knowledge about that.
Jeremy Nichols
6.
Mike Vande Voort