This picture without context gave me QA or build lab type vibes, and the caption in the story confirmed that. They had to test on all kinds of configurations and hardware, so this makes sense- tbh I am surprised its this small. Remote tools didn't really exist in those days, and even if they did, they are unlikely to work if the OS is having issues. So you run a test, find an issue, and if its hard to reproduce you might just have to bring the dev into the lab to get on the box to understand what happened.

It looks very similar to a QA Lab at a place I worked at in the early 2000s. They essentially commandeered a larger conference room and there were just (cpu) boxes everywhere.