Sony's PlayStation 2 was so computationally advanced when it launched in 2000 that the government of Iraq reportedly imported over 4,000 of the gaming consoles — sparking an intense military investigation over fears that the systems would be chained together to build a crude, low-cost supercomputer capable of guiding long-range missiles (opens in new tab)

In December 2000, with the PlayStation 2 still impossible to find in shops for Christmas shoppers in America and Europe, a report surfaced that stopped