|
|
|
|
|
|
by spc476
1778 days ago
|
|
|
I recall when IBM left Boca Raton, Florida (where the PC was invented) in the mid-90s. About a year after they left, a few friends and I roamed the abandoned IBM facility [1] and it was odd seeing empty computer rooms sans the raised floors. Some of the resulting pits were six feet deep (2m). Crazy. [1] https://goo.gl/maps/CKrEbTkRDwWQNc2d8 Yes, it's a huge hexagon shaped building. |
|
|
Things have changed, the campus plus the airport were a former airbase carved out of the wilderness and used during the Cuban Missle Crisis.
Boca was a small resort town on the coast and you had to go way west of town into the boonies before you came upon FAU out in the woods. Go much further west and it was basically everglades after that.
One summer as a teenager a buddy and myself were riding horses about that far west of Boca Lake. Nothing but pines & palmettos for miles, it would not be fun to try and hike it because you need to be up on the horse to see over the palmettos.
But this was not like any other summer. We came upon an unfamiliar clearing.
As we got closer it loomed larger, it was zero vegetation, nothing but dirt with the rest of the woods still there as a wall on the other side of the field.
We rode on out into the cleared land, this was no farm, you could see for miles to the north and south, yes we were in the middle of I-95 on horses, but no worries we were the earliest passenger traffic and there was no pavement or any way to get there by car yet.
Well when they built the IBM location it was widely known to be for secret projects, so it was recognized to be appropriate for it to be like the Pentagon, except of course a hexagon instead.
My grandma wanted me to work there, some of her clients knew some of the secrets, she was a fortune-teller.
I went to the university instead.