The Heap and its builders

The heap, the Lab's cluster, comprised about 40 Shuttle PCs, each with a fast Athlon processor and local storage and inter-connected with GB Ethernet links. We constructed in all the machines one (very busy) afternoon and commissioned the cluster the next day. At the time it was constructed, we reckon it probably formed the world's fastest desktop!

For posterity, pictured below are (left to right) Christine Clark, Adrian Clark, Alex Isaakidis, Ke Zhao, Colin Au-Yeung, Renzo De Nardi and Panos Ritsos. Mike Lincoln is seated.

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The cluster was heavily used for about five years, after which the power supplies in the machines started to fail. The last machine was decommissioned in February 2017 after 14 years' sterling service.