One reason Google was a big hit was because (while all the competition was doubling down on big iron), they ran their search on commodity hardware, and compensated in software/networking.
I don't think Macs would be a great platform for running a k8s cluster, but the power efficiency alone makes them a curious alternative to explore.
It was *not* common in mid-90s. x86 was commodity hardware - home PCs, early NT workstations. PHP was still written in Perl. Linux was a few years old - industry veterans (e.g. Greenspun) were throwing rocks at it.
Yes, the x86 platform was documented - through reverse-engineering efforts. Compaq was the first to produce PC clones, to IBM's great disdain.
Don't get me wrong - you're probably better off running Ampere. Just don't dismiss commodity hardware.
The setup was common in universities, back then. That's probably also how they got to use it.
This wouldn't work with Apple products because Apple ultimately has control over the hardware. You don't want a server that suddenly shows "Please enter your AppleID" in the middle of something, for example.
> The setup was common in universities, back then. That's probably also how they got to use it.
Sun Microsystems were also big in universities. As were IBM. Lots of people believed the "servers have special hardware" voodoo back then, and parroted that it's bad news to run servers on consumer hardware.
Somehow, decades later, the meme refuses to die. Unlike Sun Microsystems. Or IBM's Unix server business.
I don't think Macs would be a great platform for running a k8s cluster, but the power efficiency alone makes them a curious alternative to explore.