Cooper Hewitt says...
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard met at Stanford University in the early 1930s. Their friendship morphed into the commercial venture Hewlett-Packard that was formally actualized in 1938 with the unveiling of their first product: an audio oscillator, a device that allowed sound engineers to check sound equipment. So successful was their invention that Walt Disney purchased eight of these devices to check the sound of their movie Fantasia in theaters. In 1957, Hewlett-Packard constructed their first building in the Stanford Research Park. By 1959, the company became a global powerhouse, with offices in Geneva and a manufacturing plant in Germany. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, their information technology enterprise expanded greatly. Some of their projects included the manufacturing of medical equipment, the creation of an atomic clock which would become a standard for international time, and—perhaps what they are most well-known for today—the development of personal computers, calculators, and laser printers.
