“ The Eagle has landed .” That famous declaration upon the touchdown of Apollo 11 ’ s lunar module might not have happened without the shiny silver box shown above , which debuted six years earlier . The HP 5100A frequency synthesizer was one of the most complex devices the then nearly 25-year-old Hewlett-Packard Company had ever built . It could output billions of discrete frequencies from a single input , enabling engineers to test frequency-sensitive devices automatically — whether for use in manufacturing or by the space program . The entirety of the company ’ s May 1964 Hewlett-Packard Journal was dedicated to the 5100A ’ s groundbreaking features and the employees who brought it to market . Not only did it guide the first manned mission to the moon , as HP frequency synthesizers were among the critical instrumentation NASA used to test the Eagle prior to its 1969 Cape Canaveral launch , but it also brought a distinct change to HP ’ s product development processes , which until then had mostly been the effort of small teams or a single employee over short lead times . Spanning multiple departments , the 5100A was an achievement “ requiring almost 40-man-years of engineering spread over a period of about three years ,” as Bill Hewlett wrote in his 1983 book Inventions of Opportunity .
Remember When
1963
“ The Eagle has landed .” That famous declaration upon the touchdown of Apollo 11 ’ s lunar module might not have happened without the shiny silver box shown above , which debuted six years earlier . The HP 5100A frequency synthesizer was one of the most complex devices the then nearly 25-year-old Hewlett-Packard Company had ever built . It could output billions of discrete frequencies from a single input , enabling engineers to test frequency-sensitive devices automatically — whether for use in manufacturing or by the space program . The entirety of the company ’ s May 1964 Hewlett-Packard Journal was dedicated to the 5100A ’ s groundbreaking features and the employees who brought it to market . Not only did it guide the first manned mission to the moon , as HP frequency synthesizers were among the critical instrumentation NASA used to test the Eagle prior to its 1969 Cape Canaveral launch , but it also brought a distinct change to HP ’ s product development processes , which until then had mostly been the effort of small teams or a single employee over short lead times . Spanning multiple departments , the 5100A was an achievement “ requiring almost 40-man-years of engineering spread over a period of about three years ,” as Bill Hewlett wrote in his 1983 book Inventions of Opportunity .
— Sarah Murry
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF HP INC .
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