In 1939, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard had not yet created the technological powerhouse that Hewlett Packard would one day become. In those days, they were only beginning to build their first line of products. Owning a personal computer and even a printer had not yet become nearly as popular as they are nowadays, being in their infancy (and unbelievably expensive), so the first piece of hardware that HP developed was actually an audio oscillator. This could be used for a variety of different purposes, such as tuning a musical instrument of some type, testing the sound quality on an audio reproduction system (basically, speakers before they were known by that name), or even providing feedback to a vocalist about how well they were singing.
Of course, no company is ever any better than its ability to find customers. Naturally, Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard did not strike an especially powerful profile, seeing as they were working out of an ordinary one-car garage. As any small business owner can tell you, the early days of working out of a spare bedroom or a garage are only romantic when they are long over, and generally only when success has struck. These two men had only their willpower and their drive to succeed to carry them along the rough, early road toward where their company is today.
The good news is, they did attract one early customer that was itself in its infancy: the Walt Disney Company. While everybody knows about Disney and everybody knows about HP, most people do not realize that their first joint venture was a set of eight oscillators, which Disney’s sound engineers then used for the sound systems of a little project called Fantasia. If you have seen, and more importantly, heard, the final results of Fantasia, you will undoubtedly agree that the results of Hewlett Packard technology and Disney creativity were absolutely magical together.
