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if you're building or buying a new desktop PC we take it for granted these

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days that it'll probably take the form of a tower perfect for fitting in a

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chunky graphics card lots of storage and plenty of cooling but do you remember

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the days where horizontal desktop PCS were common as dirt I'm talking about

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those computers that looked like large beige VCRs that you typically sit your

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monitor on top of it seems like that would save space so why are they so hard

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to find these days outside of Home Theater PCS the question becomes more

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interesting when you consider that today's PCS are descendants of the

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original IBM PC from 1981 which used a

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horizontal chassis back then the base model of the IBM PC didn't even come

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with a hard drive meaning you were dealing with swapping out floppy discs

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whenever you wanted to run a different program and given that you were fiddling

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with floppy so often it was very convenient to have the floppy drives

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right in front of you within Arms Reach on top of that the CRT monitor that

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shipped with the original PC wasn't all that big at only 12 in meaning it was

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advantageous to have the PC chassis act as a monitor stand to make the screen

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easier to see and although Tower computers were present throughout much

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of the 1980s the advantage that they could be moved off of a desk and onto

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the floor wasn't always useful if you weren't running a more powerful

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workstation Towers could often fit more disc drives and expansion cards but this

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wasn't the Paramount concern of the average user For Whom the horizontal

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form factor was probably more practical so when and why did Towers become more

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popular we'll give you some answers right after we thank ODU to try and

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though it wasn't the first Tower PC the IBM PS2 is sometimes credited with

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popularizing the form factor ironically not all that different from the

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similarly named game console that would come out 13 years later and also I can't

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believe that's just a 13-year Gap that's crazy a couple of the original PS2

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models were designed as Towers because they were meant to hold more drives and

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cards as previously mentioned but both IBM's Market power and the fact it was

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the first time we saw an Intel CPU inside an IBM Tower meant that it

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seriously got people thinking about buying a computer that was built to sit

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on the floor a few years later Apple came out with its first Tower PC the

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Macintosh Quadra 700 launched in 1991

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the Quadra 700 was unsurprisingly aimed at creatives much like today's Apple

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products still are back then the Macintosh lineup already had a

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reputation for being being popular among desktop Publishers and Performing visual

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design on a computer means that larger monitors have obvious advantages but

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this was of course well before the era of the flat panel display that's

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relatively lightweight even at bigger sizes instead the Quadra 700 was paired

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with a gigantic CRT monitor that weighed

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79.6 lb or 36.1 kg big

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boy that kind of weight didn't exactly lend itself well to the monitor living

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on top of the computer case that monitor that we mentioned earlier that paired

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with the original IBM PC was only 122 lbs so that would be like stacking six

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of these on a single case plus a little extra so yeah apple decided to make the

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Quadra 700 a tower so the absolute chungus of a monitor wouldn't be placed

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on top of it and even if you weren't getting the biggest monitor out there

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larger heavier screens were becoming more common for average users

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simultaneously by the early 9s we'd come a long way from the days of needing to

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insert and remove floppies quite as often meaning the extra flexibility and

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space Savings of a floor standing Tower eclipse the older style horizontal PC in

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popularity so of course now it's ironic that Tower PCS are now commonly kept on

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desk as statement pieces at least if you're a gamer but of course towers

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still do usually offer more space to build in than horizontal cases while

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having a smaller footprint contributing to their continued status as the go-to

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option for a freestanding PC however case manufacturers still do make

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horizontal cases I'd just be a little leery about relying on a piece of

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tempered glass to support the entire weight of your fancy ultrawide thanks

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for watching guys if you like this video check out our other video on the evolution of computer cases comment with

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video suggestions and don't forget to subscribe and follow