Its inhabitants built customized planets for tremendous amounts of money, making Magrathea one of the wealthiest planets in the galaxy. But when the great galactic stock market crash occurred, the Magratheans went into hibernation awaiting the recovery of the economy to the point where their services could once again be afforded. They were later awoken by pan-dimensional beings who had a special order for them; they commissioned the construction of a planet-sized computer named Earth to determine the ultimate question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
One of the chief Magrathean planet designers was called Slartibartfast, and he designed the coastline of Norway. (He enjoyed doing the crinkly bits.)
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump