Microsoft Invented Google Earth in the 90s Then Totally Blew It
The Earth fit inside a 45-foot by 25-foot Compaq computer in an office building in suburban Seattle. As the East Coast woke up Monday mornings, it would roar to life.
"The temperature in the room would go up 5 to 6 degrees, things would start banging around,” Tom Barclay, the man tasked by Microsoft with putting the Earth inside a database, remembers. “You'd really marvel at it."