tonight new different and developed right here in the bay area. we look at some of our home grown inventions and invasions from computer chips to clothing, from toys to television. even a potato, all straight ahead tonight on a second look. hello everyone i'm frank somerville. the bay area has long been a place of invention and invasion and tonight we thought we would take a second look at just a few of the fascinating things

that got their start here. one of them is silican valley and a company that started in a palo alto garage and grew to become a multi billion dollars player in the high tech industry. that company of course is hewlett packered. and we spoke to hewlett and packered on how they got their start and where things went from there. >> reporter: this is where dreams become reality. silican valley. the place of development for more than 50 years. and these are silican valley legends. his coworkers and friend bill hewlett tagged along. we took the opportunity to ask how the companies that bear their names have become far bigger than they ever imagined.

>> we just thought we would make a living for ourselves, because there were no jobs in those days. we didn't have the slightest idea of what it is today. >> reporter: forbes magazine ranked hp as one of the top 25 business in the country. the company has almost 100,000 employees worldwide. an estimated value of $25 billion. pretty good for a business built out of a tiny garage. they met as college students. they started their first product, an oscillator. the first coat baked on in their kitchen oven. walt disney was their first customer. disney sound engineers used the

oscillator in the animated classic fantasia. >> being in the right place at the right time. you know, electronics was on the rise at that time. we didn't realize it. being in a rising market is much easier to be successful in the whole stable market. >> reporter: that rising market is a variety of hp products from the heart monitor to the very firsthand held calculator. ink jets and printers which revolutionized the computer industries. but a big part of their success is something called the hp way. packered management style that has been copy from time management to walking around the plant. >> we really understand what our employees felt and needed. >> reporter: that management style attracted the industries

best and brightest and made hewlett and packered millionaires. those billions have funded a number of projects from the monterey aquarium, a state of the art marine research center to stanford's packered children's hospital. >> we do a lot of things through our foundations and other ways and i'm just trying to take it with us trying different things that we feel will attract different generations. >> reporter: hewlett and packered still credit their success to their close relationship. >> reporter: what do you think about this guy? >> very difficult to get along with. >> like wise. >> reporter: another company that sprung up in the fertile ground of silican valley was intel. when intel was new, only a few computer makers were out there

including one in san leandro called emsay. and we were there when emsay announced that they would be producing computers that used intel chips. >> reporter: the computer field was the home of a few computer companies. today it's gone way beyond that. it's a multi million dollars business with a future that seems almost unlimited. two important markets for these relatively inexpensive but amazingly versatile home computers are the country's 400 million small businessmen who have not been able to afford those large expensive computers. that they find for no more than a music system will play games with him, sprinkle his lawn,

help him analyze the stock market and teach his children. that's the silican chip, right the tiny area in this slide. that is comprised of 30,000 extremely tiny transistors. now that single silicone chip has all the computing capability of the million dollars computers developed in the 50s. and yet this costs manufacturers about $100 for the whole thing. >> reporter: emsay head quartered in san leandro is one of the two largest companies. with projected sales of $12 million next year. >> you will find that 50 years from now the entire world will be, i don't want to use the word controlled by computers but will have a large percentage of the operation done by a computer. things that are being done now manually, semi manually, semi automatically will be done by a computer system. >> that of course was not the

end for intel. still to come, we will

tonight on a second look we're revisiting some of the inventions and invasions that came here from the bay area. back in 1996, bryan vanmiller sat down with one of the biggest players in silican valley, with intel founder grove. >> 25, 26 years ago that was me. i bet you wouldn't recognize me. >> reporter: but today just about everyone in the hike tech industry recognizes andy grove. president and ceo of giant intel corporation. >> we're celebrating those days means a lot of alcohol in the premises which we no longer do. so the ceiling was all part

marked with cork marks. >> reporter: intel had lots to celebrate. this $15 billion company employs 44,000 people around the world. if you bought $3,000 worth of intel stock in 1971 today it would be worth $1.8 million. it's computer chips help run thousands of products from microwaves to refrigerators. photo copiers to cellular phones. >> this is composed in this? >> yes, a little different variety. >> reporter: in 1994 the news broke about a flaw in the new intel pentium process sor.

after first denying the problem, intel admitted the error and promised to replace any processer. it cost a half a million dollars but it saved the company's reputation. >> being an engineer, at first we chose to act on our own calculations. >> and say it wasn't a big problem. >> that's right. we changed along the way and i'm very glad that we did. >> reporter: gross calls that decision to listen to consumers instead of engineers a strategic ingresion term. . he wrote a book about it that's now in the best seller book, only the paranoid survive. >> it's at that point that you have to grab ahold of the circumstances around you. your actions, your energy and

pour it in so you rise from there other than decline. >> reporter: what piece of personal advise can you give the average viewer watching this report about their career? >> every change is a threat, and every change is an opportunity. and whether it is going to be one or the other, really depends on your own actions. >> reporter: you know the bay area's role in invasion certainly hasn't been confined to technology. it actually by began back -- actually began back in the days of the big depression. he came here and started selling -- in 1997, ktvu's vern

hawkins was there when levi's strauss and company showed off a pair of jeans that were more than 100 years old. levi's biggest company. retailers say jeans are more popular than ever. that's good news for levi's. >> we're making more blue jeans now than we did in history. last year our sales amounted 1.7 million. >> its future looks pretty good as well. 100 years ago these jeans sold for $1.25. levi just paid $25,000 for them and today brought them home. one of two the oldest pairs existing. the great great grand nephew of levi strauss showed them off. and levi said that the jeans were made back in 1902.

>> they have no buckles or belt loopless. >> reporter: these were find in the colorado mines, but there's signs of time in the saddle too. >> it's a little more worn. it has some patches here. on the very bottom of the leg. they're really torn up here and this is the kind of damage you get from spurs. >> reporter: these levi jeans will get a light washing and join the memorabilia exhibit. when we come back on a second look, the bay area's role in one of the most simple and popular toys of all time. plus the san francisco man who made it possible for you to be watching this program right now and a lot of other things as well. we remember filo fonzworth and the invention of television. sweetheart. we need to talk.

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a couple of events that were made right here. including the frisbie. although the frisbie was not invented here, the company that produced them was. >> want fun? get frisbie. >> our inventor was popping around popcorn lids and he made a mold. he was showcasing them at the l.a. county fairs and the rest is history. >> you can throw it and make it come back like a boom era ng. >> reporter: these days, mattel holding the rights. and it's still flying high in many college campuses across the country. these days we take television for granted as well

we should. much of the latest inventions are just improvements of an old idea. less than a century ago when there was no television yet, it was a young california man who sent the first signal. philo farnsworth. >> reporter: in 1927, philo farnsworth transmitted the first imagine. san francisco got its first commercial television station and they placed their transmitter tower high atop a hotel. >> the transmitter is right in front of us here. so the man that operates the transmitter can see all the dials and lights that are necessary to keep running it. >> reporter: from the very first days of its arrival here, television weaved it's web around us all. we were hooked by a product

that was plainly visible even if the means were invisible and un unfathomable. >> i am working at the tv etherwaves that is not seen. those waves are picked up by your television at home. >> reporter: kpix was first on the air. ktvu joined them in 1958. along with etherwaves were inundated by the grease that makes the world go round. cigarette boxes sang or sometimes danced their way into our hearts. the viewers had to be entertained if they were ever going to buy the products. ed sullivan the unlikeliest of

hosts set a standard for a variety show entertainment that spanned the decades. >> let's hear a big round of applause. >> reporter: from sullivan to beany and cecil the seasick serpent. to the afternoon talk show, to the demographic gold mine of the teen market, the trend was obvious and ubiquitous, television was not only with us it was changing us. >> hope you will join us for your entertainment direct from san francisco. >> i saw the fireplace replace the television set as the focal pride of a room. all the furniture is arranged around the fireplace. all of a sudden it became a television set. we had to honor it as our window into the world which is very exciting. >> reporter: in the 50s and 60s, racing and roller derby

reached a fever pitch of excitement. but viewers learned early on not to get too attached to their favorite shows. the power of television was such that what it giveth it would taketh away. >> we sold out the cal palace every time, very successful. but the management that we had at the time said i don't like wrestling and they knocked it off. when you don't have television, you're out. >> reporter: television seemed simpler in the beginning. of course television has evolved per happens happen -- perhaps to the point where people say it is essential in these days. philo fanzworth was not excited about what he had created. he told his son he thought it was a monster that caused

people to waste their lives. but now in these magical electric dot, we can see the primal power was there for all to see. television has always had the i wherewithall. we recall luther burbeck after the break. wherewithal

tonight on a second look we're looking at inventions and invasions all based right here in the bay area. and with our history of the past half century we're inclined to think of most of those invasions as technological. there's actually a man who lived in the north bay who

revolutionized agriculture. his name was luther berk. >> reporter: early in the century when santa clara was a little town in the midst of a huge agriculture valley. when san jose was a growing village with scarcely a high rise. when los gatos was a few sky rises and a few dozen houses. most people derived their living from the land one way or another. and american farms were beginning to produce the most abundant crops in the world. thanks in part to luther burbeck. he had a voracious thirst to make things grow. luther burbeck was a big fan of darwin seary of evolution.

but he thought you did not have to wait for years for a plant to evolve you could make it grow right now. at hem home homestead you can see this production, a very hardwood. and here's a plant we take for granted, nice big russet potatoes. before burbeck all potatoes looked like these. millions of the potatoes were killed by blithe and thousands of people starved to death as a result. burbeck set to work to create the modern potato. bigger, tastier and blithe resistant. burbeck developed a cactus with no spines. so you could reach out, get the

fruit and it turns out the pads were edible too. for a visiting newsreel crew, he was rightfully proud of the fruit he developed. it grew faster and required less water. he was accustomed to celebrity but he could get back to work as soon as the visitors left. in the 60s he had married a woman 40 years his junior. after his death, mrs. burbeck stayed on in the family home and many of her possessions can be seen there today. burbeck's home and gardens are open to the public during the growing season and there's no charge for a visit. clara bourgess showed me around. >> he was very dedicated. he liked to work from sunrise to sunset. he didn't want to be

interrupted with people coming by with silly questions. but if you came around to talk about his business, he would love to talk to you. >> reporter: work is impressive, at a given time he would have as many as 3,000 plant experiments going on at once. if you've ever seen a santa rosa plant, you owe it to burbeck who invented those varieties. it's thanks to burbeck that modern peas are all the same size. and next time you nibble on a big plump artichoke, thank you of burbeck. burbeck could have gotten very, very rich, but that's not something he cared about. just to show that, he sold the rights to his potato for only $150. and that's all the time we have, i'm frank somerville.

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