Matterport walkthrough of the original Microsoft Building 3 (my.matterport.com)

Relevant Blogpost: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20250708-00/?p=11...

> when you went looking for room 2352, you didn’t know what color wing it was in.

I worked in building 6 for a while. That was frustrating because the two halves of the building were mirror images. If I had to go to the other side of the building for a meeting, I got disoriented and thought I knew the way back to my office, but I kept getting it wrong. It's like the Upside Down.

Not much I miss about working at Microsoft, except that everyone had an office, and if you had even a couple of years of seniority, you had that office to yourself. The window offices required 5 years' seniority when I joined, and when I had 5 years' seniority, window offices required 10 years' seniority...

Even Microsoft has gone open office now, though.

This is my dream office setup - small pods of developers where you can close the door if you need to focus. Kit the room out how you like it.

I love that the black trash cans say "Microsoft" on them, for some reason.

What was the need for reinforced (wire mesh) internal glazing?

When they still knew how to build offices…

That brings back memories. Seeing that all too familiar office layout, furniture, scribbled notes on whiteboards, and whatnot somehow evokes both homesickness and PTSD at the same time.

The offices were nice though. Back in the early days, it didn't take that much seniority to get a single person office and a little more to get an office with a window.

The original Microsoft building is in Albuquerque. Maybe this is the first one in Washington?

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/historic-microsoft-plaqu...

I wonder how long we’ll start seeing demos like this with just Gaussian splatting and seemless transitions / infinite exploration

I worked in Building 2 and it was my best job ever. Loved every second of it. They knew the need for thinking time, hence individual offices. Buildings 1-8 were in a wooded area with trails threaded through the area. Gorgeous in any weather but especially snow days. Jogging there in the snow was gorgeous, and of course they had showers so you could change.

Nice: https://postimg.cc/BLTv558B

For collectors and archivists out there, just in case you would like to keep a local copy of the walkthrough: https://github.com/rebane2001/matterport-dl

This triggers all kinds of feelings, I actually had a pretty good time working there. It's one of those things that rush by like a rollercoaster when it's all happening, and you can't really grab a hold of it all. What stays, many many years later, is nothing but random snapshot memories, like a JPEG that gets saved and recompressed over and over again for the rest of your life. So this actually refreshed those moments a bit, seeing it like this. Instantly worried I had forgotten where I parked my car, which happened all the time back then, when you'd jump from meetings between buildings. I keep hoping to be allowed some kind of walk-through again, maybe, if I ever get back up there.

RE: Snack room/Kitchen on second floor (near the testing lab double room with yellow floor)

The soda pop selection has been reduced since I was there.

No multiple root beers, no orange/cream soda pop, no Fresca.

Not a sign of Sprite! Crikey.

Only Minute Maid Light Lemonade?! No regular version? Are the employees in this building on a diet?

At least they got rid of the spicy V-8. They shouldn't decide drink availability at company meetings.

Bloody hell.

These were taken between 2014 and 2018, because I seem to recall that the "accent walls" were painted in fall of 2014 and the buildings were emptied for demolition in 2018.