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Microspotting: Inside the Microsoft Archives

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the sorta-like-the-muetter-museum dept.

jones_supa writes to point out a video tour in which long-time company archivist Amy Stevenson takes us behind the scenes of the Microsoft Archives, a collection of artifacts that preserve the company's history and culture. "There, you'll find decades worth of Microsoft software, advertisements, documentation, memorabilia and...skulls? You'll just have to watch to understand. Some of the scariest items include a life-like Bill Gates doll (wearing a jogging suit), sent by a Russian doll artist, and a human-sized Clippy costume."

40 comments

  1. Ew. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Just... ew.

    1. Re:Ew. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      Just... ew.

      Yeah, I know what you mean. Its sickening how sycophantic Slashdot is to Microsoft now.

      Dice should just come out, drop the pretence that its FOSS-friendly, and admit it's been bought and paid for by Microsoft, Apple. Oracle etc.

    2. Re:Ew. by jones_supa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Waah waah. I submitted the article exactly to balance out the FOSS-heavy stream on news on Slashdot. I like and use OSS too but it's healthy to see all the sides of the world and what's happening in IT world in general. News for nerds, stuff that matters -- isn't that the baseline?

    3. Re:Ew. by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      " it's healthy to see all the sides of the world and what's happening in IT "

      Isn't that how sexually transmitted diseases got started?

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    4. Re:Ew. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't that how sexually transmitted diseases got started?

      Now you know why Richard Stallman has never had sex.

    5. Re:Ew. by davester666 · · Score: 1

      that's why he eats toe-jam. it keeps the ladies away.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  2. Who knew... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... that the borg keep archives.

  3. Deep in the bowels ... by DavidClarkeHR · · Score: 1

    A multi-billion dollar corporation has creepy stuff in their secret lair?

    And it is used to promoted company "culture"?

    Call me when you find a giant company that doesn't do this.

    --
    - Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
    1. Re:Deep in the bowels ... by Joining+Yet+Again · · Score: 1, Insightful

      People who do good things look outward for inspiration.

      People who do nothing much look only in the mirror.

      Although Apple's done a bit of looking outward (though it'd never admit it), Microsoft, Google, &co. look mostly in the mirror.

    2. Re:Deep in the bowels ... by peragrin · · Score: 2

      I understand all that you said but I have to point out just one thing.

      a human sized clippy costume? that is the most terrifying thing I have ever heard of. that ranks higher than clown, advertisers, lawyers and politicians.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    3. Re:Deep in the bowels ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Microsoft Bob.

    4. Re:Deep in the bowels ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People who do good things look outward for inspiration.

      People who do nothing much look only in the mirror.

      Highly successful people do both. Haven't you read your Sun-Tzu?

    5. Re:Deep in the bowels ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A multi-billion dollar corporation has creepy stuff in their secret lair?

      And it is used to promoted company "culture"?

      Because you can often learn more from your duds and failures than from your successes?

    6. Re: Deep in the bowels ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I work at Microsoft. The Clippy costume is actually pretty funny in real life and gets busted out fairly regularly at office parties. (Employees can reserve stuff from the archives, sort of like a library.) People assume that everyone at Microsoft is totally bought in to whatever we ship. This might be true at the top of the ORG chart, but most of the employees see things the same as the rest of the world, and are just smart people who like working on world-class projects and trying to make things better.

    7. Re: Deep in the bowels ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Keep on trying hem, because there is a lot more "better" to make.

    8. Re:Deep in the bowels ... by Joining+Yet+Again · · Score: 1

      Only the second sentence carries an "only".

    9. Re:Deep in the bowels ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only the second sentence carries an "only".

      self-justifying pedants look on slashdot for approval.

  4. Superdome running Windows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder how many of those were in the wild?

    1. Re:Superdome running Windows? by Joining+Yet+Again · · Score: 4, Funny

      The video exhaustively presents all successful HP Superdome Windows deployments.

    2. Re:Superdome running Windows? by bobthesungeek76036 · · Score: 1

      Me thinks your definition of "successful" is a stretch...

      --
      Karma: Bad
    3. Re:Superdome running Windows? by real+gumby · · Score: 1

      The other funny thing about that video is that when trying to view it my browser told me I needed "silverlight" -- demonstrating that in fact silverlight was used for something other than Netflix Instant.

      I had always thought it was hilarious that Microsoft spent all that money both developing and deploying Silverlight just to help the company of one of their board members. I guess one purpose of this video is to stave off shareholder lawsuits ("see! It wasn't only used by Netflix! Our archivist used it too!")

  5. Windows 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I still have my original Windows 1.0 disks (5-1/4" floppies) that I could start my own Wondoze archive with... Bwaaaaaaaa!

  6. Yikes! Office PaperClip! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It was scary seeing it in Office and scary seeing it in the video!

  7. Too bad . . . by PeeAitchPee · · Score: 4, Funny

    . . . when they sat in the bubble-wrapped chairs and the interviewer asked about the chairs' significance, I seriously assumed the archivist was gonna say one of them was the one that Ballmer threw whilst ranting about Google.

    1. Re:Too bad . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That chair is probably still stuck in someone's rear-end...

  8. A human sized Clippy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    >and a human-sized Clippy costume

    the horror! just imagine if one of those made it to the real world.

    at least the archives is doing humanity something good.

    1. Re:A human sized Clippy? by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 1

      >and a human-sized Clippy costume

      the horror! just imagine if one of those made it to the real world. at least the archives is doing humanity something good.

      I noticed the other one was all tied up. Anyone think to ask why it was tied up? I suspect either to prevent it from getting loose, or some kind of weird ritual to prevent the MS employee within from being able to escape.

  9. Rosebud by mlwmohawk · · Score: 4, Funny

    I expected to see a sled at some point.

  10. The clippy suit... by The123king · · Score: 4, Funny

    It looks like you're trying to move. Would you like help with that?

    o Get me out of this suit!

    o Just let me have some limb movement...

    [] Don't show me this tip again.

    --
    If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
  11. You'll just have to watch to understand. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    No, I really don't. That's what the summaries are for.

    1. Re:You'll just have to watch to understand. by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      There's also the old saying that "a picture can tell more than a thousand words". :)

    2. Re:You'll just have to watch to understand. by multi+io · · Score: 1

      At least you can now watch Channe9/MSDN videos on a Linux box. I think there was a time when they wanted you to use S*lv*rl*ght to watch their stuff. They're not providing ogv or webm streams, but oh well...

  12. Russian voodoo doll? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It sounds like a voodoo doll. Was it full of pins?

  13. Preserving the company "culture"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    This is worth preserving in the same sense that the smallpox virus is worth preserving: Under tight conditions, so it won't spread elsewhere, and to make sure we understand it so we can hit it hard on the head if it ever wants to propagate again.

  14. Why are there maggots in my geek soup? by mrmeval · · Score: 1

    WHY? OH WHY?

    --
    I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
  15. The most scary halloween costume by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Imagine something like a

    human-sized Clippy costume.

    .

  16. Where is OS/2 Source code?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...I want it !!! I want it bad !!!

  17. Behind the scenes at the Microsoft Archives .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did they include these files ..

    Index of /iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org

    Comes v. Microsoft Homepage

  18. Interviewer by kmoser · · Score: 1

    Wow, the interviewer was a real jackass. Instead of asking pointed questions he just made stupid jokes, a la David Pogue.

  19. Silverlight Crashed - How Appropriate by obscuro · · Score: 1

    Silverlight crashed while I was watching this. I can't stop laughing.

    --
    Every rule has more than one consequence.