quigonkenny, well at least they stuck the model number on the bottom and I could translate that into X1031AP in the end. Given how screwed up a lot of these things are, thanking goodness for small mercies.

Gotta love the HP/Compaq naming convention. I can see that first meeting with the department that handles the labelling…

Boss: Okay, the guys in corporate have decided that we’re going to name all of our Compaq models a certain way.
Labeller#1: All right.
Boss: Okay, first, every series is going to have a master series number. The one that uses this case design, for instance, will be the X1000 series.
Labeller#2: Okay, makes sense.
Boss: All right, now inside of each series, we’ll break down each hardware configuration into different model numbers that are based off of the master series number, like, say…X1031.
Labeller#3: Good, good…
Boss: And we’ll add a suffix to the model name to let everyone know what region the unit is for. For instance, US for the United States, or EA for Eurasia, or AP for Asia/Pacific. All this is because it will be very important for the customers to know exactly which model they have, so if they have to download drivers they’ll get the right ones.
Labeller#4: That makes a lot of sense, boss; they’ve put a lot of thought into this.
Boss: You betcha. They sure have. Now, the most important thing–and here is where you guys come in–the absolute most important thing, and I can’t stress this enough, is that the only model number to appear on the unit be the master series number.
Labellers: Huh?