The State - News from May 21, 1989

Two of the world’s richest men, William R. Hewlett and David Packard, were present when the one-car garage where Hewlett-Packard Co. was founded in 1939 was dedicated in Palo Alto as the birthplace of Silicon Valley. A plaque was set in the front yard to identify the garage as a historical landmark, where Hewlett and Packard started a high-tech products company. It now employs 93,000 workers and generated $9.8 billion in sales in the 1988 fiscal year. The partners’ first product 50 years ago was an audio oscillator, a test instrument purchased by Walt Disney Studios, their first major customer.