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As we know it, however there were farms and stuff there first

dbcurtis 9y ago
In those days, it was called "The valley of heart's delight." There used to be bus tours along Blossom Hill Road to look out at the vista of fruit trees in blossom.
Stratoscope 9y ago
For anyone interested, run Google Earth (the real desktop version), zoom in on the SF Peninsula from Palo Alto through Cupertino or Saratoga, select View/Historical Imagery, and then run the slider back to 1948 or 1953. As you keep zooming in, look for a regular grid of dark dots in many places. These are orchards. Of trees. With fruit on them. All over the valley! I worked at Tymshare in the '70s when we moved into two new buildings on the north side of Valley Green Drive between Beardon and Bandley (now Apple buildings). The first year we were there, they'd only built one of the two buildings, and the lot for the other building was still an apricot orchard. We got to pick all the apricots we could eat. What a glorious summer! The next year they built the second building, and it was less glorious. Tymshare had just acquired Douglas Engelbart's research team, and then discovered they had no idea what to do with the technology. It really didn't fit into any of Tymshare's business initiatives. I remember running into Doug a few times there, and he always seemed a bit forlorn after a "successful exit" but now facing an uphill battle getting the company on board with anything he was doing. A few years after that, microcomputers became a thing. Some of us had experimented with them and thought they had potential. But when we talked with the sales and marketing people, the message was clear: Tymshare had a successful and profitable business with their mainframe timesharing services. They didn't want to get into microcomputers, because they could be a threat to the established business lines. And you know what, they were right!

In those days, it was called "The valley of heart's delight." There used to be bus tours along Blossom Hill Road to look out at the vista of fruit trees in blossom.

Stratoscope 9y ago

For anyone interested, run Google Earth (the real desktop version), zoom in on the SF Peninsula from Palo Alto through Cupertino or Saratoga, select View/Historical Imagery, and then run the slider back to 1948 or 1953. As you keep zooming in, look for a regular grid of dark dots in many places. These are orchards. Of trees. With fruit on them. All over the valley! I worked at Tymshare in the '70s when we moved into two new buildings on the north side of Valley Green Drive between Beardon and Bandley (now Apple buildings). The first year we were there, they'd only built one of the two buildings, and the lot for the other building was still an apricot orchard. We got to pick all the apricots we could eat. What a glorious summer! The next year they built the second building, and it was less glorious. Tymshare had just acquired Douglas Engelbart's research team, and then discovered they had no idea what to do with the technology. It really didn't fit into any of Tymshare's business initiatives. I remember running into Doug a few times there, and he always seemed a bit forlorn after a "successful exit" but now facing an uphill battle getting the company on board with anything he was doing. A few years after that, microcomputers became a thing. Some of us had experimented with them and thought they had potential. But when we talked with the sales and marketing people, the message was clear: Tymshare had a successful and profitable business with their mainframe timesharing services. They didn't want to get into microcomputers, because they could be a threat to the established business lines. And you know what, they were right!