I had one of these as a teenager. I used an ISP called ZEN who provided a static IP address with their broadband. I used the static IP to host multiple websites that I designed for customers. I ran this thing from the airing cupboard of my bedroom with an APC UPS. It earned me quite a few hundred pounds every year in hosting fees! 😊 I must check in my mum’s loft to see if it is still hiding there as I don’t think I ever sold it.

Believe it or not, I turned off the last bunch of them only in January 2020, together with a bunch of HP NetServers, all from the 90's. These boxes were indestructable and indeed, together with the Cisco 7200 and 10k series routers, were the buildingblocks of the internet. There are many 7200's out there as well, still!

Blast from the past!! I thought you might get a kick out of knowing that this video is making the rounds among the old Cobalt engineering team. :) As for the mobo - it was designed in-house. :)

These things were known as 'Pizza box' servers due to their formfactor. I remember going into datacentres in London's docklands and just seeing rack after rack after rack of them.

I remember wanting a cobalt appliance to mess around with as a kid but could never afford one. Always wanted to host my own website. I did for a while until the cable company sent my parents a cease and desist about running a web server on our cable modem 😂

After Sun dropped the Cobalt RAQ platform, Project Blue Quartz was developed, which was an open-source version of the Cobalt RAQ software. It could be run on any modern server, or as a VM and was eventually ported to CentOS 5. Later on, the Blue Quartz software was ported to Project BlueOnyx, which is still active and downloadable today.

Nothing beats the 90's - early 2000's translucent casing looks. I wish there was more of that nowadays too.

I so remember these, the ISP/MSP I worked for developed an inhouse board that allowed two drives to get crammed in the case and use software to mirror them. There was a VERY specific method to properly fold the IDE cables to get the thing closed up. Ran a modified version of the RaQ OS, also tweaked in house if my memory is still good. Will try and dig up a pic of them in production

Guys, you'd better avoid ultrasonic cleaning of boards with crystal oscillators, because they may be irreparably damaged by the vibration. De-solder crystals from PCB or at least don't immerse them in the cleaning liquid. And the second advice I'd like to mention, in my opinion the best way of de-soldering components, such as the capacitors, is as following: apply a bit of tacky solder flux, then heat the junction adding some fresh conventional soldering alloy (not a lead-free one), then hold your soldering iron with one hand to keep the solder melted, while very gently pulling and wiggling the component by the other hand. In your case, as a capacitor has only two legs, it's in fact possible to keep both hot and melted simultaneously, by constantly moving solder iron tip from one to another, back and forth (remember, your other hand is cautiously swaying the component at the same time). It sounds more complicated than it works, although you'll need a little bit of practice, preferably on some dead board. The key to success is tacky flux and free solder alloy. Next, in my opinion, round solder tips are not very handy. Give a try to chisel (D-shape), knife (K-shape) or bevel (C-shape). BTW, with a wide solder tip, like Hakko T12-WD52 or T12-K for example, you can heat a number of legs at the same time without moving the solder iron. Thanks for the video, you're doing great!

These were absolutely amazing back in the day. Ran my first hosting business off one of them. The web UI was the killer app as well. It made management of the server a doddle and lowered the barrier for getting into hosting. Which was a double edged sword, if you didn't have the Linux chops for when things went wrong. I learnt so much running one of these.

When I worked for an ISP in the late 90's, we deployed hundreds of the Qube, I still have a Raq3

I love the status messages the programmers in to describe various tasks. "BOOTLOADER: Leap of faith!"

Hah, I remember these. In fact, really really really wanted to get one back in the day to toy around with Apache and web projects. Now a cheap tiny SBC from Raspberry Pi or Odroid doesn't just outpower these but also the best Sun and SGI servers of the day, by a pretty long shot.

I built my hosting company using the RAQ2, RAQ3, RAQ4, RAQ XTR and finally the RAQ 550. Moved over to high end Dell servers with Plesk not too long after Sun took over. Was heartbreaking to dismantle 2 whole 40U racks full of cobalt servers when they went EOL.

There's something oddly fascinating about this video. As someone who grew up on the early web, but never paid much thought to the technology behind it at the time, this opened up a whole new avenue of nostalgia for me. There's something too about the translucent plastic faceplate - that kind of design was really isolated to just a few years in the late 90s/early 2000s, and it really ties the whole thing together as a piece of its time. Thank you so much for making this video!

I made a bunch of web-based games, written as 100% HTML (no Java, Flash, JavaScript, etc. -- became very popular with the WebTV crowd). They were CGI scripts -- written in C -- so all the forking wreaked havoc on my ISP's webserver. So they moved me to a Cobolt RaQ, which I lived on for a few years. Them's were the days! PS - The site is still up. It still gets a tiny bit of traffic & don't have the heart to kill it yet. Going on 25 years (plus a few more when they were hosted on my university's Computer Science dept's Sun server). 👴

Really happy to have discovered this channel. Can't wait for more videos!

One of my college roommates interned for Cobalt Networks. One of the projects they assigned him writing the code for front controls and display for the Raq 3. I remember him having prototype servers in his room and we hacked the PCI card to support a sound card (the PCI bus on the server only supported 3.3 volts, and most decent sound cards needed the 5v pin as well. So we had to pull the power with bodge wires from other stable sources on the motherboard. In the end we ended up turning one of the early Cobalt Networks prototype servers into a MP3 jukebox for the house 🤣. I did loooove that blue case too.

We used these as marimba transmitters. At that time, fully managed thick desktops and electronic software distribution was brand new I remember the cobalt team being very easy to work with. Ours were x86 based. We had several hundred.

Brings back memories! These Cobalt servers were a big part of my early career in web development, and helped me move onto more advanced server administration. They really were fantastic! Thanks for the vid 👍🏻

I remember paying for those Cobalt RaQ 3 servers from a web hosting company back in 1998. They was pretty good and easy to use web server. I always wanted to buy one for nostalgic purposes lol. Thank you for sharing this video. Have a great day.

I used to be a product manager for a UK business service provider (Easynet) and the hosted Raq service was one of the first products I launched. I'm pretty sure Compaq DL180s were available then so it wasn't the first 1U server, but one of the joys of the Raq was it wasn't deep so you could 'back to back' them in a rack and have 80 in one 42U 600x800mm cab. They also didn't kick out a lot of heat or use much power so the generally dreadful DC power and cooling design of the mid to late 90s could cope with it (so long as you didn't have an entire row of them). Happy days!

I remember the company I worked for circa 2000-2003 had one Cobalt Qube and few RaQ3's. The Qube was used by web developers and designers, while RaQ3 were used for office related applications also were used by our clients. Still remember the feeling of booting up these plug-n-play web servers for the first time.

The one simple problem was, and still is that making the server easy to use does not in any way remove the requirements for good technical skills. You need those to build a well functioning and secure environment, back then, and today.

Back in 2005 or so i bought one of the original cube cobolt server and kept that thing for several years.

Cobalt had a Great Staff of Engineers they did all the Board Design in house. The beta boards (PCB) were Fabbed locally (San Jose) I sent out all the Gerber files got the Components the BOM for assembly and sent them all out to a place in Santa Cruz. Worked with some Great People! Thanks Takes me back!! Can't believe is missed this video (I blame thockin, Man I was on the Sysengr team!!!).. (subscribed, so I wont miss another)

What a shame, Sun destroyed Cobalt after they acquired them and I think it was intentional. I ran a farm of these back in the day and even had a Cube or two at home. Fun days those were

Man this brought back some good memories - I installed dozens of these and the Cube variants in school systems back then. Such a fun time back then

I completely forgot about this company. Thanks for unlocking some hidden memories of the Y2K era

I ran five of these for a few years to support services on a small college network. I recall having our intern wipe them and put on NetBSD when the shipped OS was no longer supported. Cool little boxes!

Amazing channel with super cool, old but golden techy information videos, just subscribed! Thank you!

Bought several Qube's back in the 90's for small satellite offices. They were reasonably cheap and reliable. Loved them.

6:39 - "Initializing IDE" this takes me back bro. Thank you.

Wow such an amazing video! Really like the idea of this channel. Keep it up.

Wow, blast from the past. Thank you! Installed about 20 of these in the late 90's. This is a great channel. Much appreciation. Great to see all of the other comments as well.

Great video. I’m looking forward to more content from you!

Ah man, I have a big fascination with old web servers. Waiting for the next videos! Subscribed.

Glad that you speak clearly and don't bs around. I love this type of content and have subscribed.

This video was just amazing! Subbed! About to go on a binge watch of your channel!

I had one of these! what a product! Thank you for your coverage!

I remember when the startup ISP I worked for went from a modem rack room (cooled 24/7 by over a dozen fans) to a Livingston Portmaster. It was such an amazing change.

I remember installing Cobalt Networks Cache RaQ 2 boxes for companies with "slow" internet connections I should have kept a few when they were decommissioned as they seam to be worth a small fortune now!

One, this is a really cool video. Two you shouldn't need to reset the root password. This version of the kernel should be vulnerable to the backspace bug. Just press backspace 28 times at the password prompt. I believe that works in this version of the kernel.

beautiful video! instant sub! Had a qube and many raqs, beautiful machines ! Thanks.

Just found your channel. Awesome stuff. Subscribed, liked and all that jazz. Looking forwards to more videos, Keep up the great work!!

hehe the serial output got me man nicely done, love the music fade in so immersive.

That was the first server I ever had in 2002. I had it for 6 months then upgraded to a true 1U dedicated server. The RaQ was pretty cool.

Nice blast from the past. Thank you! I remember installing the Cobalt Cubes back in the day! Primarily for email.

15.8k subs, this channel is gonna go far ❤

It is a crime that you don't have more subscribers. I thoroughly enjoyed that episode.

Thank you youtube algorithm. Super interesting video btw, never would have known about any of this stuff. Super interesting to see how the internet we know today started out with servers like that.

Had two, a 3 and 4. Absolutely amazing machines! Ran my own personal sites on them for around a decade.

love that kind of content, thx

another great video, thank you

Interesting video. I'm a grey-haired infrastructure engineer, and even to me it's slightly astonishing that the concept of a 1U server was once considered novel. You're braver than me though, plugging in 20-year old hardware with visible cap failure!

These were my introduction to Linux. Have been hooked since :)

Still have 2 of these boxes - a RaQ and 3 - really solid products!

Awesome video. Subscribed.

Made my day... That was our First Dedicated server we used for WebHosting! the old Cobalt RAQ

I remember these and they were fantastic!

Love seeing this stuff. Neat story and video

This video bring back fond memories of working in a NOC and managing rack and rack of these servers... Then everyone moved to dell, HP, and Compaq servers.

remember seeing this at an expo in Switzerland. I was a very young man with an enthusiastic Dad.

Brings back some memories! Used to admin a few of these in 99-00

Great video!

I have two of these in my garage that ran my not-for-profit world wide car club for 10+ years. Have three actually, two of the RAQ 4s and one of the long chassis Intel based RAQ XTR 4 drive one. If I recall, I ran them from about 2005-2016 with progressions of supported OS up through BlueOnyx. The XTR got containerized into a VM on VMware and the RAQ 4s were decommissioned after migration of domains to the XTR. I loved these machines and it became my stepping stone for CentOS knowledge that put me where I am today in Enterprise IT Infrastructure. Will be watching this series.

That was a fantastic little box!

Subbed!! Seems like you have awesome content. I hope to see more

I owned a few of these when I started a small hosting service in '99. They were great.

Looking forward to seeing this followon

Oh boy, I had several Cobalt RaQ servers in my first data center on the 11th floor of an office building in downtown Cleveland with a whopping 3Mbps on a bonded T1. We also installed a few Cobalt Qube’s at client sites. Great memories!

My first ever server was a raq3, was impressive platform for not only providing dedicated servers, but also reseller setups

another channel that is gold

I remember installing a Cobalt Qube as an email server in 1999 (occasional dial-out to ISP on an ISDN2e line to fetch/send) - delightful little thing to configure...

This channel needs more subs.

I have a few lying around, will start playing with them again😊

Definitely bring one of them back and host a public website from it ! & Other you can swap the motherboard for one of those itx celeron or pentium boards and host a modern website from there.

I have two Cobalt machines in my house, a Qube3 and a Raq2. Used to use the Qube for doing web dev locally before deploying to remote servers back in 2000.

Great video. I remember my k6-2 333. The first PC I built myself, the First computer I had with an AGP video card, which my gf bought me at the time. A rage 2 pro if I remember right. Couldn't play rainbow 6 without it. All the way back when I started building websites. Thanks for the memories...

I remember these. I was working at IBM support in the late 90's/early 00's and was the lead for the support contract for these

Holy, I have a Cobalt RaQ2, thought everyone forgot about them. Got mine with dead HDD so I am looking for restore images. Got it running on netbsd in the meantime.

love the transparent blue!!

We used a couple of those at the company I worked for at the time (around 2000-2001). We had two set up in a HA web server, which at the time was a pretty neat trick for a plug and play appliance.

I remember wanting to buy a Cobat RaQ in the mid aughts. I was setting up a community WiFi network and wanted something for users to look at when they connected. I ended up using a Windows 2000 machine and it ended up hosting much more than just a web server.

I hadn't seen these in ages. Damn this brings back some memories.

I was 18 and spent all my savings for buying a raq. Soon I was printing money. I eventually had a whole rack of them while having zero linux experience.

I remember drooling over this back in the days. Never came across one, though.

Memories! I started my first "hosting business" with one of these.

Well that's a blast from the past. I haven't thought about Cobalt in 20 years or more. The hardware is so familiar I think we must have had some - the rackmount version specifically. I can feel those neurons firing but can't quite dredge up the details - that was half a lifetime ago.

Sun dropped the ball totally after acquiring Cobalt. I loved the Cobalt Qube at work, however we never really rolled them out to production, we carried on using big Sun hardware.

Beautiful to see a DIP package on the motherboard!

I have a Cobalt RAQ 550. Fascinating machine...

I ran MIPS RaQs with Debian for a long time as router/firewall boxes for several customers. They were only replaced when those customers' Internet connection outpaced the packet forwarding capabilities of the RaQs. The last two in service got switched over to NetBSD/cobalt before being removed from service, which was much faster than Debian at that point. I'm still running a Qube2 on my desk as a persistent IRC client (screen + irssi), running NetBSD/cobalt 9.3. One Ethernet port sits on the public Internet (we have a static /28), the other talks to the Ethernet segment for old computers. The only failure was the mechanical hard disk several years ago, which was replaced with a mSATA SSD and an IDE adapter. PSUs were supposed to be a weak point but I don't think I ever got a Qube that actually *had* the external power supply...always ended up adapting something else!

I loved the couple of RaQ 3s I had.

Holy cow. I totally forgot about these. My old hardware pile might have a raq2 from my highschool days. They were becoming super adorable on eBay which means I scraped some money together and bought a used one.

Thanks a lot. I had forgotten about this... thing.

I worked there, was the product manager for the Qube II.

This was the first server i worked on back in the 90s. They where really stable running Apache, Linux, PHP and SQL on low to medium used websites.

I had absolutely no idea this even existed!

Oh man a blast from the past. I never worked with these systems but was fairly active in the industry. The 29F080 AMD BIOS flash was a good memory. The PATA HDDs, of course, are why your systems are not up as they just were never designed or qualified for data storage longevity for more than 3-5 years. Looking forward 20-30 years into the future, the modern SSDs/HDDs, especially SSDs, are going to have very little of its data still available as they have fine tuned their 5 year reliability in exchange for optimized cost. I have to say I don’t miss those little PATA jumper blocks that were used to configure the HDD as either a PATA master or slave device. I hit pause every 5 seconds during the boot admiring every single line.