Overheard: Google’s first production server

‘…with the hair pulled back, revealing a rack of cheap networked PCs, circa 1999.’ jurvetson’s photos, flickr

Jurvetson writes: Each level has a couple of PC boards slammed in there, partially overlapping. This approach reflects a presumption of rapid obsolescence of cheap hardware, which would not need to be repaired. Several of the PCs never worked, and the system design optimized around multiple computer failures.

Here’s another photo from the Computer History Museum.