From the HP_Agilent_Equipment Mailing List on Yahoo:
Generally HP Sold Step attenuators under 2 part designations: 849x and 33321 or 33322x.
All 849x attenuators were sold as end product for bench use, the 3332x variants were sold as OEM models at a discounted price to instrument manufacturers and ATE integrators.
All 33321 and 33322 cross exactly to 849x models. Those attenuators were sold over the new equipment sales channels or authorized distributors. The attenuators had 24V coil voltage and a round Viking connector to be driven by the 11713A and similar Attenuator Switch Drivers.
The suffix letter was as follows:
The main numbers designate the range of attenuation:
Outside of those numbers there is a gammut of attenuators that have part numbers such as 33321-60049.
The absence of a suffix letter and the - xxxxx makes it a part # which means it was an attenuator that was used in a piece of Agilent test equipment so it can only be ordered via parts desk, those attenuators almost always have a ribbon cable assembly that either terminates in a 14pin dip connector or a 1 row header connector.
The attenuator can also have a 5086 or a prefix matching the instrument it was used in such as 08642-xxxxx or 08902- xxxxx. Specifications for such attenuators are really hard to come by since they fall under Agilent proprietary information. Sometimes the attenuators had tighter tolerances compared to the regular off the shelf parts or a reduced or extended frequency range. For the 8902A for example, 18GHz step attenuators were used because they offered a much better VSWR up to the 1.3GHz used than the 4GHz models.
The only way to get specs is to find out the NSN and check on the Internet bid board system for a technical data package, however this is a complicated process.
Lothar