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Texaco Towers was an Apple office above a Texaco gas station: https://www.folklore.org/Texaco_Towers.html


Strictly speaking, it was a two-story building behind the Texaco station:

> There was a Texaco gas station at the corner, and a two-story, small, brown, wood paneled office building behind it, the kind that might house some accountants or insurance agents. Apple rented the top floor, which had four little suites split by a corridor, two on a side. Because of the proximity of the gas station and the perch on the second story, as well as the sonic overlap between "Taco" and "Texaco", the building quickly became known as "Texaco Towers".

I also enjoyed the reference to Cicero's Pizza:

> Burell and I [Andy] liked to have lunch at Cicero's Pizza, which was an old Cupertino restaurant that was just across the street. They had a Defender video game, which we'd play while waiting for our order. We'd also go to Cicero's around 4pm almost every day for another round of Defender playing; Burrell was getting so good he would play for the entire time on a single quarter (see Make a Mess, Clean it Up!).

Now I get to admit my age. When I worked at Tymshare in the 1970s, we often went there when it was still named Coppola's Pizza.

It had previously been part of the Pee Wee's Pizza chain founded by Albert "Pee Wee" Proietti and Nunzio "Spike" Spacone. The Cupertino location was sold to Carmen and Palma Coppola, who named it Coppola's. They in turn sold it to their mother and father-in-law, Angelina and Nunzio Cicero. (Yes, another Nunzio.)

Nunzio Cicero kept the Coppola's name out of respect to Angelina's family name, and only after she passed in 1973 he named it after himself.

Cicero's Pizza moved a couple of times after that and is still in business on Bollinger Road in Cupertino.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SanJoseHistory/posts/3134634...

One fun thing about Coppola's/Cicero's is that they brought out the sliced pizza on a big round tray, but did not give out individual plates. Instead, you put a few napkins on the table and that was your plate!

As you can imagine, the tables got a fine layer of pizza grease over time.

Another Cupertino landmark around the corner from Coppola's/Cicero's was the R. Cali Brothers Mill on Stevens Creek. This was a huge animal feed mill and drive-through store. The front entrance sign said: “R. Cali & Bro. — Cupertino Feed Store, Ranch Spray Service, General Truck Hauling, Wood • Coal, Hay • Grain.”

You could drive your truck through to load it up with farm supplies, or take your car through as I did to get dog food.


And the baby food jars of Parmersan and chili flakes, with nail holes poked in the lid.


Tymshare! What kind of work did you do for them?


Programming of various sorts, mostly on the PDP-10, XDS Sigma 7, Datapoint 2200, and TI 990.

I'm out of time for today, but if you have HN Replies, I will drop you another reply later this week with some details.




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