if you're building or buying a new desktop PC we take it for granted these
days that it'll probably take the form of a tower perfect for fitting in a
chunky graphics card lots of storage and plenty of cooling but do you remember
the days where horizontal desktop PCS were common as dirt I'm talking about
those computers that looked like large beige VCRs that you typically sit your
monitor on top of it seems like that would save space so why are they so hard
to find these days outside of Home Theater PCS the question becomes more
interesting when you consider that today's PCS are descendants of the
original IBM PC from 1981 which used a
horizontal chassis back then the base model of the IBM PC didn't even come
with a hard drive meaning you were dealing with swapping out floppy discs
whenever you wanted to run a different program and given that you were fiddling
with floppy so often it was very convenient to have the floppy drives
right in front of you within Arms Reach on top of that the CRT monitor that
shipped with the original PC wasn't all that big at only 12 in meaning it was
advantageous to have the PC chassis act as a monitor stand to make the screen
easier to see and although Tower computers were present throughout much
of the 1980s the advantage that they could be moved off of a desk and onto
the floor wasn't always useful if you weren't running a more powerful
workstation Towers could often fit more disc drives and expansion cards but this
wasn't the Paramount concern of the average user For Whom the horizontal
form factor was probably more practical so when and why did Towers become more
popular we'll give you some answers right after we thank ODU to try and
carve your own space in the digital world without a website is Bonkers with
ODU you can design and get your very own website up and running in no time at all
thanks their intuitive codefree drag and drop elements and if you find yourself
experiencing some writers block odu's AI copywriter is there to help you out oh
and did we mention that it's uh free that's right and you even get unlimited
hosting and a fully paid custom domain name for the first year visit our Link
in the description and start building your very own website with ODU even
though it wasn't the first Tower PC the IBM PS2 is sometimes credited with
popularizing the form factor ironically not all that different from the
similarly named game console that would come out 13 years later and also I can't
believe that's just a 13-year Gap that's crazy a couple of the original PS2
models were designed as Towers because they were meant to hold more drives and
cards as previously mentioned but both IBM's Market power and the fact it was
the first time we saw an Intel CPU inside an IBM Tower meant that it
seriously got people thinking about buying a computer that was built to sit
on the floor a few years later Apple came out with its first Tower PC the
Macintosh Quadra 700 launched in 1991
the Quadra 700 was unsurprisingly aimed at creatives much like today's Apple
products still are back then the Macintosh lineup already had a
reputation for being being popular among desktop Publishers and Performing visual
design on a computer means that larger monitors have obvious advantages but
this was of course well before the era of the flat panel display that's
relatively lightweight even at bigger sizes instead the Quadra 700 was paired
with a gigantic CRT monitor that weighed
79.6 lb or 36.1 kg big
boy that kind of weight didn't exactly lend itself well to the monitor living
on top of the computer case that monitor that we mentioned earlier that paired
with the original IBM PC was only 122 lbs so that would be like stacking six
of these on a single case plus a little extra so yeah apple decided to make the
Quadra 700 a tower so the absolute chungus of a monitor wouldn't be placed
on top of it and even if you weren't getting the biggest monitor out there
larger heavier screens were becoming more common for average users
simultaneously by the early 9s we'd come a long way from the days of needing to
insert and remove floppies quite as often meaning the extra flexibility and
space Savings of a floor standing Tower eclipse the older style horizontal PC in
popularity so of course now it's ironic that Tower PCS are now commonly kept on
desk as statement pieces at least if you're a gamer but of course towers
still do usually offer more space to build in than horizontal cases while
having a smaller footprint contributing to their continued status as the go-to
option for a freestanding PC however case manufacturers still do make
horizontal cases I'd just be a little leery about relying on a piece of
tempered glass to support the entire weight of your fancy ultrawide thanks
for watching guys if you like this video check out our other video on the evolution of computer cases comment with
video suggestions and don't forget to subscribe and follow