Inside Soundlab
Play Microspotting: Inside the Microsoft Archives
Description
A morning ritual for Microsoft employees is reading MSW on our corporate intranet. This is where we see news, events, campus maps, and other information that we use every day at Microsoft. One of the features of MSW is a video series called Microspotting. Even though these are targeted toward employees, we thought you would enjoy them here on Channel 9 as well. - Larry
Long-time company archivist Amy Stevenson takes us behind the scenes of the Microsoft Archives, a collection of artifacts that preserve our history and embody our culture. There, you'll find decades worth of Microsoft software, advertisements, documentation, memorabilia - and skulls? You'll just have to watch to understand.
Fun facts about the Microsoft Archives
- Founded: 1989
- Number of items in collection: 65,000
- Scariest artifact: A life-like Bill Gates doll (wearing a jogging suit), sent by a Russian doll artist.
- Amy's favorite: The carpet receipt from the first Albuquerque office.
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The Discussion
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Jason818 Thanks for this video Larry. I'll be sure to check back to see more Microspotting.
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felix9 Ahh... Microspotting should be a nice series ! interesting !
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KiwiHarry Interesting episode. I haven't seen one of those Microsoft folders in years, or the 5 1/4 floppy diskettes.
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elliotbridgewater I could spend days looking through these archives!
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Oink Awkward and weird.
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piercove I think that Clippy needs to be in the next Halloween special and get eaten by some Zombies.
Definitely fun looking through the archives.
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Fallasteeni Freeze at 2:41. What's with the Apple logo on the top right corner?
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BrentMorrisRTP Nice job folks
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LarryLarsen @Fallasteeni: We have made a lot of products for Macs over the years. I suspect it is either one of those products or hardware to allow one of the products we made to be used.
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Flashback610 @Fallasteeni yes, Larry's right. What you see is a Mac on our shelf--as far as I know we are still the largest producer of Mac software besides Apple. Our Mac hardware usually comes directly from the Mac testing labs.
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Jason818 @flashback610 But I thought macs are a competitor of Microsoft. This is complete madness!
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Flashback610 @Jason818:
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Kris Last year I was in someone's garage. I see a CD that printed Microsoft IE 4 :)
I don't know what it means for after 15 year. I thing about if our current software make any sense after 10 year.
oops, We can use 10 year old stuff but it's never happen with Software. Nobody like to run 10 year old VS. -
HubertD Wow. Finally saw that package of MuLISP. One of the reasons I was hired into Microsoft Support (too long ago) because I mentioned I had experience in programming XLisp in AutoCAD
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saichirravuri where is this located, campus? building#
More episodes in this series
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Defrag Tools #201 - Game Show Part 2
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Defrag Tools #106 - Larry Osterman - 30 Years - Part 1
Ms Archives: A slice of Microsoft History
