When I was in high school, I partook in a tech class, learning about computers – how they work and how to fix them. It was quite the insightful course, and somehow or another we luckily were able to fly out to Seattle as a small class to visit the Microsoft campus in Redmond. I can’t recall if we got a grant or if we did some fund-raising (this was almost 10 years ago), but it was made possible for our smaller class of about 10 students to go out to Redmond to see Microsoft.
Our teacher somehow knew an employee who worked there, and I guess he managed to arrange a tour of sorts for us so we flew out to Seattle! After a short trip from Wyoming, we arrived in Seattle, and shortly thereafter, we went to Redmond for a tour of the campus.
The Microsoft campus
Our guide mentioned that something like 30% of all internet traffic went through the Microsoft servers there in Redmond (Microsoft updates, live.com, and other websites owned by Microsoft apparently make up more of the internet than I would have thought, at least at the time). The number might be a little off, and it definitely might have changed over the past decade, but it was a staggering amount of traffic in any case.
We then went on a general tour that contained information on the history of Microsoft.
Classy Bill Gates on some newspaper cover, showing off his operating system
Some old games that Microsoft made.
I am not sure why this was in the Microsoft museum, but whatever.
Interesting tidbit about Microsoft’s first software and Mac.
Some T-shirt. I can’t recall if this was in the museum or for sale, but I found it funny.
After the tour, we got to see some more internal things that you couldn’t usually do without an insider (the person our teacher knew) who had the appropriate badge and clearance. He showed us his office and explained how work was there. I remember him saying something to the effect that he was only reviewed once a year to see how the previous year’s projects went. Anything within that year was up to him to ensure it got done, so he neither had a boss encouraging him, nor breathing down his neck.
We then got to see some of the servers.
I am pretty sure these weren’t the “important” servers, but other ones that weren’t such a security risk for outsiders to get close to. I recall the technicians there telling us how the server room would get up to 120°F (about 50°C) within a few minutes if the air conditioner went off, a fun fact that I still remember to this day because of how crazy it was. It would get even hotter after a few more minutes, which meant that their AC was not only powerful, but vital to the continuous function of the servers. If the AC did go out, they had an emergency shut off button to shut down power to the servers instead of letting them get hot enough to start damaging the hardware.
We then got to see a bit more of a special tour, and if I recall, it was not open to the general public, but we were allowed to see it.
This is from outside of the “room of the future,” and if I recall, we weren’t allowed to take photos on the inside because it had a lot of revolutionary ideas they didn’t want competitors to see. In any case, I don’t have any photos from inside. The mailbox itself had some digital features built into it that would let you know – without having to open it – if you had any mail inside. I think it would alert you via email or possibly notify you on your phone.
Otherwise, the inside was interesting. It was modeled like the inside of a house. You entered into the living room with a kitchen set on the opposite wall. I recall a dining room being off to the right, and there may have been bedrooms as well.
The main point of the mock-up house was that it heavily featured RFID tags, or Radio Frequency Identification tags. These are small chips with antennas that you can put in/on things, and if something nearby can scan it, it can relay information. One practical example would be to put them in products, so instead of having to scan a barcode when paying for your goods, you could have a quick scan of your whole cart at once and immediately calculate the sum. Obviously one issue is that each individual product would require a chip, which would cost money.
In the house, they had examples they showed us, chief among them being a bag of flour with an RFID tag in it. A person demonstrated how it worked by putting the bag of flour on the counter. An RFID scanner in the counter then scanned the flour, recognized that it was flour, and projected a list of suggested recipes onto the counter next to the bag of flour from a ceiling mounted projector. They had some other similar examples too, where putting objects in proximity of other would cause certain things to happen, but the other examples elude me after 10 years, unfortunately.
The Entire Microsoft tour was an incredible experience. We got some exclusive looks at the inside of the Redmond campus, and we learned some interesting things. I am super glad that we got to go, and I thank my teacher who dealt with us while we were there.
A list of software that Microsoft has made
This was actually in the museum with the newspaper, games, and shirt, but I thought it would be a cool photo to end this post with.
After this, we did some sightseeing around Seattle. Check out the second post here!
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