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Initially when the IBM PC came out, the company IT group wouldn't let us switch to the IBM. IT’s position is that we needed to switch to the mainframe network, which used VT-100 terminals, for statistics and modeling and quit fooling around with the desktop toys. A friendly competition was arranged. We took a typical data package from pilot plant runs and then ran a time trial on how long it took to input raw data in the computer, set up the software to analyze the data then print out the results. The HP9825 with our custom software completed the time trial plus plotted out multiple regression analysis before the mainframe’s data entry was even complete. I had one of the company's first IBM PCs a month or two later and within a year or two the company had a thousand or two.

Quite a testimony for the IBM PC. Can you tell me what year your company bought a thousand or two of them? 1983?

1983 sounds about right, not much earlier for that number though. I think it was sometime in 1981 maybe 82 when we got the IBM PC. The HP 9825 was originally acquired in about 1977 or so and retired from the lab work in 1979. 79 is when my group acquired it.

For a year or so, we operated the 2 desktops side by side. New program writing shifted to the IBM PC with the legacy HP9825 just used to finish up the pilot plant work with their custom programs. Funny thing is that the IBM PC just lasted that year or so. A chlorine plant a few hundred yards away had a leak and we evacuated. A few weeks later the PC was dead so opened it up. Chlorine gas had gotten into the building and the circuit board was corroded. Now though, the HP computer and the other HP gear was ticking along just fine so opened the HP9825 up for a look. Not a bit of damage. Conferred with HP geeks and they said their boards had a clear coat kind of mask sprayed on both sides. While they would not claim it, HP hinted something about milspec mumble mumble.