HP serial number

[Stevescope]

I am writing from Italy, thus sorry for my english.
I know that from the HP serial number it is possible to know the date of birth of the instrument, but I do not remember how. Should be a number to substract or add. Does anybody know the answer ?

 

[shrtrnd]

Hmmmm.... never heard that you can tell date of mfgr FROM a serial number by itself. I know manuals often refer to revision changes from increasing serial numbers, but I don't think you can actually tell the year of manufacture from the serial number, as if it was coded with the year in it. Maybe somebody else has heard of this?

 

[Stevescope]

Hi, thanks for the answer.
Sorry not the entire date, only the year of costruction. If I remember in the right way, you must add 6 to the first number. In all my HP instruments, the serial number is 30xxxx or 35xxxx or 40xxxx and this is for 1990, 1995, 2000, in fact the instruments are an HP5316B (last version) an HP 33120A and an HP34410, I think it is possible and true. What do you think about ?

 

[shrtrnd]

40 years on HP gear, and I learned something new today.
I'm told some HP manuals give a breakdown on your serial number code.
It tells you the date of manufactor AND the location where the instrument was built.
I don't know what it is, but I've got a room full of HP manuals, ...so I'm going hunting.
If I find the answer, I'll post a later response.

 

[shrtrnd]

I'm just not seeing it. I checked a dozen HP manuals. The only reference I saw was that the prefix of the serial number is the type of instrument, and the suffix is an actual serial number for it. Maybe you've got a particular class of instruments that this theory pertains to? You can find loads of information referenced in the manuals I checked about the serial number suffix for each instrument I looked at (mostly about revisions, or WHICH manual pertains to which serial numbers), but I can't find anything
that supports a date code embedding IN the serial number itself.
Sorry I can't help, I thought maybe I was going to learn something new from this,...
but I guess not. You should have asked when I was 17. When I was younger I knew
EVERYTHING about electronics. The older I get, the more I find out I DON'T know.

 

[shrtrnd]

I checked some Tektronix manuals, and THEY have a list of countries of origin, tied to the serial number:
B000000 Tektronix, Beaverton, Oregon
100000 Tektronix, Guernsey Ltd, Channel Islands
200000 Tektronix, United Kingdom
300000 Sony/Tektronix, Japan
700000 Textronix, Holland
Maybe somebody's confusing different companies and their different serial number schemes?