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i guess you could consider the wooden frame that the abacus came in as the

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first computer case but today we're going to start by talking about the case

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from the original 1981 ibm pc

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the original personal computer from big blue was obviously a tremendously

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important computing platform but the chassis was also notable for influencing

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what most pcs would look like for the next couple of decades

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it was that standard beige box with a couple of floppy drives accessible on

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the front as well as expansion slots and a keyboard port on the back and if

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you're wondering why it was beige well the answer is that nobody knows for sure

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but computer historians seem to think it had to do with businesses that bought

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pcs wanting them to fit in with other office equipment at the time which was

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well you guessed it mostly beige how exciting anywho pc cases didn't

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change too much outwardly for about 20 years aside from the addition of three

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and a half inch floppy and later optical drives but there were some major changes

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on the inside when it came to form factor the standardized size for key

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components like the motherboard and power supply a form factor called at was

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popular back when the 286 and 386 processors ruled the world but unlike

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today's cases many connectors had to be built into the case itself kind of like

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the front panel i o that you see on cases today not to mention that the

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motherboards were larger atx came onto the scene in 1995 and not

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only did it make for smaller pcs but it introduced the modern concept of the i o

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panel on the back of the motherboard because atx didn't rely so much on

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connectors that were already built into the case it gave motherboard

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manufacturers much more flexibility as to which interfaces they wanted to

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support and made it easier for users to upgrade their computer without changing

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out the case atx also introduced the familiar atx power supply which was

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really important because it allowed for software control of that front power

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button so you could just press it to tell the pc to shut down properly

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instead of just killing the power but it wasn't until the late 90s and

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early 2000s that there was a big push from the industry to move away from

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beige boxes and really rethink both how

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people would tinker with their pcs and how computers would look aesthetically

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now you're probably familiar with how black pcs started becoming more common

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around this time including the next computer that steve jobs was pushing

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before he returned to apple also how mass-produced machines from

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companies like compaq started adding splashes of colored plastic but one more

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interesting early trend was to give computers a more industrial look with a

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shiny metal exterior as we saw with the 2003 antec landboy it featured a

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lightweight aluminum chassis to allow it to be taken to lan parties more easily

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and even had a side panel window so you could show off your totally sick athlon

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xp and be the envy of your fellow nerds and it wasn't just custom builds by

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gamers that featured this aesthetic apple also jumped on this train with the

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power mac g5 with its famous cheese grater front panel that inspired the mac

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pros that you can buy today of course not all gamers wanted that look as this

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was also around the time you started seeing those all acrylic cases that

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people would often fill with neon parts those builds did look extremely messy

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but hey they were a heck of a lot more interesting than buying a beige box from

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dell not long after in the mid-2000s three and a half inch drive bays started

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to disappear and when a case did still have them users would often install a

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different device like a card reader or a fan controller to make use of the space

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because people simply didn't need floppy drives much once usb drives became a

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thing so people were now thinking then about removing unnecessary features from

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cases rather than adding more combine this with the continued popularity of

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windowed cases and design philosophies shifted towards making builds look more

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tidy and elegant hence built-in cable

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management features becoming popular in the late 2000s tempered glass in the

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mid-2010s and of course more minimalistic aesthetics overall driven

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in no small part by fractal design even tackier designs like the infamous

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antec lamboy air which could fit over two dozen fans and featured

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bungie supports for hard drives used modularity as their ethos so the case

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was supposed to be easy to rearrange or strip down as the user saw fit it wasn't

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this was also a time where components were becoming more powerful than ever

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and real thought needed to be put into ensuring that systems were cooled

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properly the antec p180 from 2006 these

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guys really weren't afraid to innovate were they featured a separate chamber

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for power supply cooling similar to today's power supply basements and in

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the early 2010s we started to see cases make excellent use of the space once

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taken up by clunky bays for optical drives and full-size hard disks and

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instead dedicate it to water cooling radiators and reservoirs and even gamers

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not running a fancy liquid cooling setup often could use that space as one

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gigantic air intake oh yeah and somewhere in there RGB

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happened people really like RGB that did merit a mention just like our sponsor

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