What theodolite?

[sleibson]

Yes, HP's Civil Engineering Division (CED) in Loveland made surveyor tools from the early 1970s to 1983. A CED instrument I used in an unsuccessful attempt to fight a bogus Colorado State Trooper speeding ticket was a fussy box that required you to fiddle with a knob to null a meter. The division's last instrument was the 3820A Total Station. These boxes combined precision optics with handheld calculator components. See the September, 1980 HP Journal for details. (http://www.amerisurv.com/docs/HewlettPackardJournal.pdf)

Here's a quote from the Agilent History Center:

"1/5/90
Bruce D. Badger, President, Maptech, Inc. to WRH on behalf of “a small group of us who formerly worked with the now closed Civil Engineering Division at the Loveland, CO facility. We all started in 1970-1972 and stayed until the doors were closed in 1983. After a short term with Wild Heerbrugg, who was a competitor of CED, we decided to keep things going and form our own company. We are even helping to keep the old 3820A (Bear) alive with our own field data collection device. Although the Civil Engineering Division was relatively short-lived, thousands of land surveyors still identify with the products that came out of that small Loveland division, and still occasionally call Maptech for support…We seem to have stalled at about $1.6 million/year in sales (the last 3 years)…What actions were actually planned which made a major difference in the growth of Hewlett-Packard Co. in the early stages? What mistakes were made that hindered its growth?” WRH responded 3/1/90: “I was very sorry when HP felt it had to drop out of the civil engineering field. We had a great product. I have a unit which Dave and I share occasionally and really know how good it was. However, that’s water over the dam."


The CED lab was co-located with the Desktop Computer Division lab in Loveland's building C when I joined HP in 1975. I remember there was a track mounted high above the cavernous joint lab space carrying a small target on a track used to calibrate and experiment with the CED equipment. Periodically, you could see the target move back and forth along the track.

--Steve

(09-23-2014 09:24 PM)ColinJDenman Wrote:  

(09-16-2014 12:20 PM)HP-Collection Wrote:  For my collection I would like to buy a theodolite

Didn't HP make their own?