A tidbit of history on the HP 2100 to 21MX product line

From: Jay West <west_at_tseinc.com>
Date: Tue Feb 29 13:01:55 2000

I just talked to a guy that worked (in an executive type position) years ago
at a company called MeasureX. According to him, MeasureX bought a lot of
HP2100's for their process control stuff. They got tired of the problems
associated with the cpu card set consisting of 8 cards (9 with DMA - er -
DCPC in HP lingo) and the problems with the wire-wrapped backplanes.

They redesigned the 2100 cpu to fit on a single card - one PCB - no
wirewrapping, all etched traces. They sold this redesigned cpu (actually
just a relayout of the circuits) back to HP, and HP dubbed it the 21MX
(where the MX is for MeasureX). This was also the origin of the "build your
own modular HP", called the K series where you pick and choose cpu boards,
slot assemblies, etc. at time of order.

He also mentioned that HP used to charge (at the time) $1400 to "clean the
backplane". MeasureX found out that the CE's were just taking out all the
cards and taking the unit to a car wash and spraying them with pressured
water and then sun-drying them in the back of a closed up station wagon in
the summer. So---- MeasureX just started doing it themselves and save a huge
sum of money :)

I found these tidbits interesting!

Regards,

Jay West
Received on Tue Feb 29 2000 - 13:01:55 GMT