[HN Gopher] A Tour of Microsoft's Mac Lab (2006)
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A Tour of Microsoft's Mac Lab (2006)
Author : ingve
Score : 159 points
Date : 2025-07-20 10:11 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (davidweiss.blogspot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (davidweiss.blogspot.com)
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| *and printer lab
| donatj wrote:
| It hurts my heart so badly that when you read a post of such
| vintage the outward facing links are almost certainly all broken.
|
| We've lost so much.
| LorenDB wrote:
| And that's why archive.org exists.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| Yep, but it's missing a lot (feels like about half missing)
| and it's a fragile single point of failure that's constantly
| under threat (political, legal, economic, cyberattack).
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| Wondered about this one too.
|
| Even the Library of Alexandria was destroyed at some
| point...
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| At several points, actshually.
|
| There has never been a _good_ time to let our guard down,
| but there 's seldom been a worse one.
| xandrius wrote:
| Don't be sad, here it is in all its glory:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20250109120355/http://davidweiss...
|
| And make sure to consider donating to the Internet Archive if
| this made your heart slightly less achy today :)
| Archonical wrote:
| The OP was referring to outbound URLs. Those are still
| broken.
| xandrius wrote:
| For me they worked, you need to change the capture date
| when viewed within IA.
| hidd wrote:
| (2006)
| hedgehog wrote:
| If I recall correctly this was ground level of building 115, now
| renamed Studio G. Someone from Mac BU cruising the halls on a
| Razor scooter while wearing a propellor beanie once gave me a
| peek in that lab.
| mrpippy wrote:
| In Redmond?
|
| I seem to remember MacBU was in San Jose, maybe that was before
| this post? Or were things split between the locations?
| hedgehog wrote:
| Yes, Redmond. The lab in the post looks like Redmond but I'm
| not sure where else Mac BU was, as a Mac user I thought it
| was cool to see the lab but it wasn't related at all to my
| work.
| allenu wrote:
| I started working in MacBU about 3 years after the article.
| It was split between the two locations when I joined.
| (Outlook for Mac and PowerPoint were both in California.)
| These photos look like Building 115 to me, though I didn't go
| into this particular lab often. After this, the team moved to
| Building 31 and later Building 35, if I remember correctly.
|
| One thing that was interesting about MacBU was that it was in
| a completely separate division from the rest of Office (i.e.
| Windows Office). That gave the team a really cool outsider
| vibe and the team had a really nice close-knit culture.
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| Don't get me wrong, love the writeup... Ancient history now but
| perhaps less so in 2006.
|
| But if I took pictures of my employers' lab and posted on my
| personal blog, they might not be thrilled... And if I were to
| seek permission, they'd want it on the company website instead...
| zerkten wrote:
| Blogging on personal blogs was somewhat condoned back then.
| There was a period when MS was really encouraging personal
| blogs and then they pulled back from this to focus on blogs
| hosted on their platform.
|
| Channel 9 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_9_(Microsoft))
| was taking off and they were doing video all around their
| campus. It was a real look behind the curtain and probably an
| element of the foundation for their adoption of open source.
| graublau wrote:
| what harm was caused?
| sugarpimpdorsey wrote:
| Like that time someone gave a tour of Twitter HQ on TikTok and
| it inadvertently exposed that they and their coworkers
| basically did nothing all day but drink cappuccinos and eat
| free company food.
|
| You could tell these guys were genuinely thrilled they got free
| sugary drinks in 2006. That was considered a serious perk back
| then.
| rconti wrote:
| It was. I was a teenager in the northwest in the 90s, and
| remember how aspirational it was to work somewhere that gave
| employees that kind of latitude.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Of course they did, taking pictures of people doing work
| would be the specific concern that was raised in the comment
| above yours. So all you're going to get is a look at the
| company fridge.
| bdavbdav wrote:
| Was wondering that. Most places I've worked have been an
| (unspoken in some places, explicitly in others) no phots of
| anything work related.
| iwontberude wrote:
| lol they made a reference to Sanford and Son ("the big one")
| nickswalker wrote:
| The author is likely referring to the potential for a Cascadia
| megaquake: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-
| really-big...
| rconti wrote:
| This. The northwest has been talking about "the big one" for
| ages.
|
| I was in SoDo for the Nisqually quake in 2001, that's still
| the biggest quake I've been in, and I've been in the Bay Area
| for over 20 years now.
| DarkSource wrote:
| I really feel for whoever had to test all those printers
| tomcam wrote:
| Microsoft never ever got the mad props it deserved for its
| extensive testing and compatibility work. I remember going
| through reviews where we had to fix bugs from our competitors
| to preserve compatibility for earlier versions of their own
| products that had taken shortcuts.
|
| I've often wondered if part of the declining quality of its
| products is that those actions were simply never given the
| respect they deserved.
| rconti wrote:
| For a moment I thought the "free drinks" fridge had Surge in it,
| but that turns out to be some Seagram's product.
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(page generated 2025-07-20 23:00 UTC)