The Evolution of PC Cases
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- čas přidán 5. 07. 2021
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PC cases didn't start off with tempered glass, textured front grills, built-in cable management, and magnetic filters. They were originally in beige boxes meant to help fit office spaces. Linus shows you how things progressed over the decades!
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I’m surprised there was no specific mention of the shift to towers in the 90s.
Yeah, he totally skimmed past the XT and AT form factors and moved straight to ATX.
czcams.com/video/TVGk0cMrACw/video.html..
I was wondering about that as well. Desktop vs tower used to be a thing. But I do not think "desktop" even means horizontal computers any more, just another synonym for computer because they literally don't exist at all anymore.
@@wisnoskij it mostly means a computer that isn’t a laptop or phone
@@wisnoskij Today, "Desktop" just means it's not a mobile computer. As to case orientation, there are still cases that can be horizontal or vertical depending on space requirements.
This warrants a full LTT video, not a quickie. So much missed on such a great topic.
Wonder if Dell warranties back in the day were beige.
czcams.com/video/TVGk0cMrACw/video.html..
Actually Dell was one of the first OEMs to offer a black case. Cases were mostly in a grey phase before that. You really stopped seeing the beige cases about the time Windows 95 came out.
@@bepbep7418 beige went away and they were either black, or BRIGHT WHITE with a splash of blue. but the flat desktop form factor (instead of tower) didnt really go away from most places until after 2001.
@@bepbep7418 My father's old Compaq desktop case was black as it gets, running Windows 95, back in early 1997.
Okay, depressed robot :)
The early 2000s, the dark days of modding, cutting our own windows, and installing cathodes tubes meant for cars, hoping the inverter wouldn't fry. A lot of modern design stemmed from those days. We apologize for RGB; we thought you would only use it for one color at a time.
Also remember the use of UV-reactive plastics and sticking a black light in there to make everything glow.
Yes! I think I still have a UV reactive fan in my tech box somewhere; its probably even wired for 7v.
@@ayuchanayuko I miss those a lot, there's still the old pc in my brothers room that has them and it kinda looks cooler than my new full rgb build
Did the inverter ever fry?
I still have a midi-tower hidden away with custom window (with cutout for a 120mm fan grill), custom paint job, cutout for an 80mm fan with wire mesh in the front and 100+300mm Sunbeam blue CC's. The name "Sunbeam" was quite fitting, as I had to bend a piece of sandblasted acrylic and place it over the 300mm in the bottom of the case to difuse the light, as it would otherwise blind me when trying to use the PC. :) The 300mm was bought as a kit with power adapter and slot mounting plate for the on/off switch for the back of the PC. I made the mod in 2004 when I was unemployed for a time. I still have the trusty old Dremel Pro (Model 398 Type 1) I used to cut out the window. :)
I love the G5. Absolutely TIMELESS. Something that legitimately didn't age a day.
Modded a case years ago and the only thing that can make me replace it if the new parts dont fit anymore...
Same, that's probably why Apple basically reused that design until the 2013 Mac Pro too
I bought an Intel Mac pro in 2009, Awesome workstation. I loved how easy it was to swap out parts.
Sadly it stopped working a few years ago and it wasn't worth it to fix. I still have it, I'm having a hard time getting rid of it.
I still have my 2012 cheese grater Mac Pro. A masterpiece of case design, I love that thing. Even in 2024, after fully maxing it out with dual CPUs and RAM and adding a modern graphics card, it has respectable performance in Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve.
These days, I just use it to play my old 32-bit games, though, since modern Apple Silicon Macs are so much faster for video editing work
I still miss the front drive bays. Even if you don't use disks, it was still neat to be able to expand your front I/O or have a fan controller with instant access.
You can still find some out there. You just have to dig through thousands of pages.
Fractal design focus g have front drive bays it’s 60$ great case
Miss them? Just ran an price search and there are over 500 different case designs currently available with at least single 5.25" drive bay. I have Fractal Design Define 7 with a bluray-drive in it. It could support over dozen HDDs (like Linus demonstrated), but only have 2xSSD + 2xHDD and three M.2 drives in my system.
@@kimnice u make it sound like 7 drives is a small amount :P
I upgraded my PC in the past few months and used the Fractal Design Define R5. I still have a Blue Ray DVD writer and occasionally might need to pop in a Blue Ray for ripping or whatever. I wasn't willing to give that up just yet. Plus the R5 is very quiet, has good air flow, modern cable management and lots of space for additional drives. I have multiple drives for backup, media and games. I just don't care about the RGB bling thing because the box sits on the floor under my table.
It annoys me to no end that most modern cases don't even have a single external drive bay anymore. I'm already fine with squeezing my optical drive and my card reader into the same bay but give me at least _one!_
Eyy guys, come look at this.
No, seriously. What use do you have with optical drives?
Edit: almost all replies to my comment are about the bay, not about optical drive. Please reply to me only if you're going to talk about optical drive. I get that these bays can act as extensions.
@@kichapps Read optical media. Admittedly, the card reader is much more important but since I can fit both in the same bay, why shouldn't I? Mine even gives me two more front USB 3 ports and ESATA.
@@unvergebeneid yeah, that makes sense. I was thinking of optical drives, as you referred to.
I rather have expansion bays on the front instead of all those "unicorn barf" color fans. It's looking like I may have keep reusing my current Corsair case for all future builds in the years ahead.
@@kichapps uh, blurays and cds?? I’ve been buying blurays for awhile now cause I’ve gotten so sick of the countless subscription services, and I also buy looots of CDs (and load them onto my computer) because I like owning physical media.
I want more "history of" videos - this is my kool aid jammer
Watch "The Computer Chronicles". Theres your bonefide history lesson right there.
3:50 - They also started removing NECESSARY features from cases, so you can't put in a Blu-ray drive any more.
This is the main reason I haven’t upgraded in years.
I remember how big that was.
@Jd Yes you can, but that defeats the purpose of having a case to put your components in. You have to admit that putting components on your desk because people don't like the look of having them in a case is a bit dumb
Most people don't need them
Also there are still cases with 5.25 bays for those who needs it
Now you can get PCs built into the monitor lmao wow
czcams.com/video/TVGk0cMrACw/video.html .
And they probably fold, too.
All In Ones actually came out back in the early 2000s. I'm sure there's a few people who remember the brightly colored transparent 2000s iMacs.
It started and ended by monitors on cases
more like into your monitor stand like that Dell one they looked at a bit ago
Overall decent, just missing some stuff like:
PC's switching from flatbed to tower style. (this was a massive change)
Introduction of the Cube cases.
Small cases like Mini ITX cases and NUC boxes.
Obviously had time for it, given whomever wrote that added in periphials and addons instead.
Cube cases and small cases would probably be too tangential for techquickie (also that's not how you use the word "whom" :^})
Tower cases have been around as long as desktop or "flatbed" cases, they were mostly just used for servers and other machines that need to fit a large volume of hardware or disk drives early on. Desktop cases were the standard for desk computers because everyone had to use a CRT monitor and it made more sense to have the monitor stack on top of the computer to limit the amount of lost desk space. When desktop cases became less popular in the late-90s, it was entirely a marketing thing. Regular people perceived bigger tower computers to be more powerful, even if they weren't, so towers became the standard there. You could still buy desktop cases capable of having a monitor on top up through the late 2000's though.
I recall our school getting some 386’s the department of energy was getting rid of that were like 2 ft high towers with more expansion cards in them then total ports in any computer today, I’m pretty sure one had 15 between iso and pci
RGB LEDs evolved from Cold Cathode lighting ("Neon") back in the day.
I once had my water cooling loop generously spill onto the circuitry for the cathode. I was quite an sparking mess.
1:10 kinda tells a bit more of the story of beige boxes, at least in the 90s they were usually more of an off white, but the plastics used were easily discoloured by uv light, so in offices with strip lighting they typically went beige very quickly, which is why older hardware can be a weird mix of shades of beige, depending on the environment they've been in
When I started at Dell, they were using the Klinger chassis, which was a PITA to open, especally when we were trying to get customers to reseat their video cards, which came loose a lot.
Most cases still are
@Zeta Darus pain in the ass
@Zeta Darus Pain In The Ass
Ahh dell tech support, getting grannies to rebuild their PCs since 93
Was that the hinged clamshell with release buttons? I loved the idea but hated actually opening them.
The first computer case was actually mixture of human skin and cloth.
The words "Computer" used to refer to people who did mathematical equations.
What were the thermals like? Sounds pretty insulatory.
@@benjaminoechsli1941 The cooling system used both air and water and was actually very effective, the computers maintaining a constant 98.6 degrees.
@@JeffDeWitt Assuming you mean Fahrenheit, as 98°C is sweltering, that's 37°C! Very impressive indeed. Of course, the other parts of the system need to be looked at to put things in perspective. Power consumption, efficiency, that sort of thing. ;P
@@benjaminoechsli1941 They were very fast at very specific tasks, having dedicated circuits for face recognition, pattern recognition, etc, but very *very* slow at just about everything else.
PSUs by Mitochondria brand were quite efficient. Although the power factor from Glucose (C6H12O6) to Adenosine Triphosphate was not quite 80 plus Gold rated.
linus: leave a like, or dislike depending on how you felt-
107 people: and I took that personally
"People really like RGB"
Me: *Cat hissing sounds*
I hate it too, just give me an elegant case over a tacky RGB anyday
If it's done good it does look good, but if it's RGB only to be RGB, it's not worth it
@@linuxman7777 I have elegant case with some RGB
Yep, RGB doesn't impress me at all. I refurbished an old tower case to build my computer last year. No glass panel either. Used the 3.5" floppy space for front panel USB and used two 5.25" drive bays for a front fan kit. It's sleek, black and beautiful.
Don't worry, it's fine to be in that absolute minority that just likes to be different.
If it performs it's great. If it doesn't, no amount of good looks makes me want it.
czcams.com/video/TVGk0cMrACw/video.html .
I'd give up a bit of performance for a nicer look. A bit.
I literally have a piece of bamboo wallpaper stuck to the side of my case, cuz it was scratched up and it annoyed me. Wallpaper actually holds up pretty well.
We all know RGB adds performance
I said the same thing until I got my original lanboy in blue
Dark mode in video background, so good and soothing to eyes.
Everyone should copy it. This is really a necessity
@@77pixels32 ya know not everyone uses dark mode right
If you're wondering why it was beige the answer is......."Yes"
Yes.
Yes
Yes
Actually it was because it was cheap. Kinda like early Ford's having only black paint.
Yes
I'm going to be honest rgb is fine but the rainbow vomit that is modern builds makes me want to get a hammer
That has to get uncomfortable on the eyes after a while.
I currently cant sleep peacefully because I suddenly experienced of sudden bad memories hitting like its the end of the world. Good thing Linus just posted his new tech video and had removed right away my stress. Nothing is better satisfying than what you really love.
Those 'cheese grater' Macs were inspired by the aesthetics of Braun company products. Same thing for the early iPods.
a n i m e
n
i
m
e
I did not like the fact that modern cases have no external 5.25" and 3.5" bays.
@@WarrenPostma We want gaming cases, with expansion bays.
that makes 2 of you
Well discs are gona disappear in the future and more people are using online methods only.
czcams.com/video/TVGk0cMrACw/video.html
@@Graphics_Card Still like bays for expansion, like fan controllers or usb port drives.
The Antec cases look really interesting and ahead of their time.
expecially the antec lanboy air. pls make a build in it
They were, I owned a couple from the original 300, and 900 series which were some of the first that I know of to have large top exhaust fans and space for multiple 120s up front. Coolermaster also had some nice looking anodized aluminum cases with front 80mm intake fans which was new at the time as well.
dawid made a vid on that
I had an Antec Sonata for some time, I had to "Dremel" the lower corner of the 3.5" drive tray to fit a GTX260.
Nice case, but too short...
antec 900 = my fave (I still have mine)
Still rockin' my Antec p182 for my second rig...
Sad to see they're no longer a top dog in the market.
That's what happens you skimp on quality for quick buck, and more so when it came to their PSU's their green painted Earthwatt series was total garbage. I had 2 of them go bang on me in a year, and they where not even pulling 1/2 their rated load.
@@CommodoreFan64 sry to hear about your experience with their PSU's.
Luckily, I'm very happy with the p182's quality.
@@martheunen Well there's not much that can blow up on a PC case lol! I will admit I had an Antec 300 case for years that was very lovely, and at the time I kept the build under my desk(AMD Phenom II X6) to save space, but my girlfriend at the time had a young daughter, and she ended up knocking my morning coffee off my desk, and killed the build, I salvaged what I could like my HDD's to get the data off ASAP using my laptop, but in frustration I sent the case, and other components to the local recycle drop off. Learned my lesson, and I no longer keep my PC on the floor lol! These days If I need something budget friendly I go Rosewill(their cases, fans, and PSU have never failed me), and Fractal Design for my main builds.
I think you forgot to mention BTX failure. My Cooler Master Stacker case was ATX/BTX covertable
BTX was mostly focused on cooling, as it placed the CPU right smack in the middle back side of the board, next to the exhaust fan. I believe it was mostly used by Dell Dimensions
There's one thing I really want designers to start taking into account: cats. I love mine, but she loves to use a case on the ground (or a stand on the ground) to get on my desk or lay on my monitor speakers (where most people would put their towers). She turned off my old computer numerous times by stepping on my old HAF 922's power button. So I made sure my next case had the I/O on the front, which was actually less common than I thought it'd be.
So... put your I/O switch, front USB, and front audio jacks on the actual front, not the top, case makers!
mount it to the bottom of your desk. Also handy for standup desks so it can raise and lower as the desk does. If your front panel ports face up, you can mount it an inch forward or whatever.
@@theredscourge I have a wooden executive desk, so that's not an option. I also don't really trust under desk mounts with $2,000 of hardware.
Linus' LAN boy air review was my introduction to the channel. Rocking double earrings and a park bench. Prior to Linus, I'm pretty sure I only watched 3dgameman aka Rodney Reynolds.
I also watched Rodney Reynolds a lot. His case reviews were very detailed and in depth. He focused a lot on characteristics that mattered such as airflow, removable motherboard trays, positioning and number of drive bays and expansion card slots. To this day I still base my purchasing decisions on these factors. Too bad the computer case industry has been prioritizing looks over function over the last few years. I would take a Corsair 800d over any of the tempered glass, drive bay lacking disasters that they have been pumping out over the last few years. I built my main system in a Corsair 750d a few years ago. I would love to get my hands on an 800d some day as well. It would go well with my EVGA SR-2.
Oh man I had one of those Compaq Presario systems. Only case I know of that had a single cd/dvd disc holder built in under the front panel. That's right, not a drive, but a disc holder.
"oh yeah and somewhere in there RGB happened"
yep, seems about right
Got a hackintosh built in it for myself. Not an easy thing to do but still looks awesome.
Linus didn't include the cases that make him feel old
I want a computer case that represents me as a human, with the delicate components exposed on the outside, and the hard stuff on the inside!
Mine is definitely delicate inside out
My first year in college they had pentium 4s which were brand new and top of the line. I bought a usb drive that cost $100 and was a grand total of 128mb... ya...
Always wondered what happened to Antec. Their cases were by far the most popular in my nick of the woods in the early 2000s. Next thing I know, it's like they just disappeared.
I am trying to find a beige ATX case with a vintage aesthetic for a build, but it is very hard to track down any new ones. Evercase seems to have discontinued their beige ATX tower offerings, and they might have been the last ones?
I have tons in my garage with 386 builds. 486 builds. OG pentium builds. Etc.
Before: We dont care about cooling
Now: We pretend we care about cooling
I care about cooling.
@@R9A9V2 i was talking some of the case manufacturers
Funny story:
Back in the early 00's, I wanted to improve cooling for my GPU (Hercules Radeon 9500 Pro). I did so by drilling 6mm holes in a hexagonal pattern in the side panel and mounted an 80mm fan behind it with some brackets. Behold, green and purple artifacts all over the screen. I thought I had messed something up regarding the GPU, and ordered a Club3D 9700 non-pro instead. Well, I thought, as the old card was toast anyway, might as well see how high I can clock it before discarding it. I clocked the card fairly high, and rebooted the system. To my immense surprise, all the artifacts were gone, and the card performed perfectly. Just to double check, I reset the card to default settings, and the artifacts were back! OC'ed it again and everything was fine.
Somehow the extra cooling had the GPU running too cold at default settings, don't ask me how it's possible.....
@@HepauDK i know how it happened it's
MAGIC
I feel like this wasnt scripted.
Linus is speaking from experience. Lol
No mention of one of your first case reviews on NCIX, the Corsair Vengeance C70, for shame! Truly ahead of its time with the flexibility for water or air cooling, removable mechanical drive bays, and still kept a few 5.25 bays for the much needed at the time fan controllers and front mounted reservoirs for watercooling.
Beige really came in because white things didn't stay white in an office where smokers were lighting up. By making them beige it didn't look dirty/yellowed in a short time. They had tried black earlier particularly on keyboards - but they showed "grease" from fingertips. Most of this was figured out not on PCs but on telephones and typewriters.
I still like my optical drive bay
It's a must have for me in my case
These are now shockingly rare to find. My local Microcenter carries literally ZERO cases that have an optical drive bay 😢
@@rickw9799 Fractal still makes the Define R5. That's what I just used in my latest upgrade.
Me: That one guy that modified his case to support 1 Optical drive so he doesn't have to buy a case with a huge cage.
Started using my old Lian Li PC-7 with brushed black aluminium panels that I bought back in 2005, again this year when I upgraded my pc. Such a nice case.
Early 2000's had a lot of various PC case designs including from Dell which by then was using black/grey for many of their home desktops ranging from office to high end. I remember the XPS lineup in 2003-04 had those Blue/Grey cases for example. Then you had Alienware which was really far out for what cases looked like before being bought by Dell and becoming their gaming lineup.
That “3.5 inch floppy” you pointed out on the PowerPC Mac was actually an IOMega Zip drive.
Somebody tried to sneak in a PowerPC as a PC
@@drewzero1 PC means personal computer not a Windows machine. That was also around the last time you could actually game on a Mac.
Someone make a tempered glass RGB abacus case.
But can you overclock it?
Submit this idea to Razer for their next April's fools
with RGB.
My wife's grandmother gave us a wooden desk from the early 2000's with a compartment specifically made for a computer tower with holes for running cables and such. Unfortunately computers back then give off as much heat, so they didn't really focus much on giving it good airflow. I have to step my games down to a less intense resolution than my rig could handle to keep the temps in check. When we eventually move I am going to gently inform her that the desk is too bulky to fit in the new office and get a new one that will let my system breathe.
I cut a circle on the bottom and mount a big pc fan blowing upward, powered off 5 volt usb charger it's pretty quiet and good flow. i7 2600k, gtx 970 temps stay fine, even with one-hour, all-core software builds.
I love these walk-throughs of the evolution of computers, its hard to believe that consumer desktop computers have only been a thing for less than half a decade. Please keep doing more of these!
I'll never give up 5.25" bays. I wish 3.5" bays were still around too.
Same here i wouldn't personally use floppy and DVD drives but there are card readers fan controllers even stuff for water cooling
I love to have 5.25 back it makes a build more personal
@@Rainbow__cookie Indeed. I still have my Blu-ray drive and wouldn't mind having floppy drive as well because I have retro PC's so transferring stuff to them would be easier that way.
He didn't include SGI's awesome cases in the early 90's.
LMG don't have anyone 1337, they wouldn't have been allowed on SGIs in the early 1990s.
SGI looked cooler, but Sun was more practical. I always liked their pizza-box designs (SS20, for example): they were tiny, but, with SBUS and processor cards, just as upgradeable as a modern PC.
That Apple Mac G5 case is still one of the nicest cases ever made IMO. Prime PC mod or sleeper PC territory.
Going back in time then fast forwarding really fast to the future is how this video went, fast and simple. A reminder of how my first PC in the 90s looked like to how it my current one looks like, very accurate 👍
If Linus wants to buy, i've a Antec Super Lanboy in the attick.
I have*
an*
attic*
@@ploperdung 2/3rds of that is just regional language, not necessarily incorrect.
@@ploperdung i speak 5 language so believe me when i say that i dont care about your opinion. Also keep in mind that my smartphone dictionary isnt in English so sometimes it decides to change some words. For a troll you should at least know that "I have" and "i've" are the same thing.
Oh hey, we're back to the old Techquickie style. You listened!
Why did I just get a legitimate pulseway advertisement with Linus in it
I remember the Antec P182 SE was one of the first cases I saw that came with a powder coat finish internally. Looking at it and knowing it's from 2007 just blows my mind. The options that the normal P182 and P182b had were on their own phenomenal. 120mm intake fans, and exhaust fans, with fan controller, removable drive cages, PSU basement, the P180s were ahead of their time.
4:15 Tacky!? I'll have you know that Lanboy Air case was functionally far beyond its competition in terms of airflow! The entire case has mesh all over while everyone else was obstructing airflow behind solid panels. They pioneered mesh principles! Even Steve from GN would be in awe of it's superiority over other cases of the era.
I can't help but feel this left out swaths of history.
czcams.com/video/TVGk0cMrACw/video.html . .
It did. You could probably do an hour video just on how the acrylic "gamer" PC cases evolved, and how Alienware (among others) drove how gamer PC cases look today.
Well, the channel is called "tech quickie".... He'd spend an hour just covering the XT form factor.....which was completely left out of this video, but was the form factor of the original IBMPC, mentioned toward the beginning of the video.
Recently built my first pc, used the Be Quiet! Dark Base Pro 900 rev 2… still has 2 optical drive bays, and I was still able to fit a 280mm radiator up top and an absolutely massive watercooling res in the case too. You don’t always have to give up features to get a powerful/cutting edge/neat looking build!
This was a fun trip down memory lane. I remember my step dad's PC back in 92. It was super ugly lol. Then a few years later we upgraded to a Gateway with Win95. Then my cousin's family got a Gateway with Win98 which blew ours away. Then once I got out of high school in 2004 I bought my own desktop with graduation money. Had me a fancy AMD Athlon 64 3400+ with a Radeon X800.
This Linus guy should have his own channel! 🤨
ikr!
Yeah Imagine if he had one for himself.. he could call it Linus Tech Tips or something... idk
@@whitehavencpu6813 Wow, what a genius name
What about silent cases?
15 years ago you could not buy a one - you had to make it yourself
you want a silent case? EASY, Don't put anything in it!
*badum-tsk*
Ok, I'm going now, you don't need to get the broom.....
I was just thinking about PC cases before this came in my recommended 🤔 It's just crazy that LEDs, glass side panels and multiple fans is the "norm" now. It's evolved so quickly.
Since 2014 I stopped using cases lol I used to live in an attic I just drilled everything to the wall and just ran cable everywhere to connect video cards and hard drive and when I moved to a shop I literally drilled my pc into the wall and 2 by 4 never had an issue with big graphics cards or multiple SSD and adapters that I need to do my work
I'm sad Linus didn't talk about air ducts and side fans. The good old days.
External radiators! 5.25" bay reservoirs!
I honestly think 90s beige/white cases looked better than today's cases. New cases in the early 90s looked really stylish and professional, not like a night club. Usually had a ridge pattern, really tactile power and reset buttons, CPU frequency display, Turbo button (cmon), and the 5.25" drives and 3.5" floppy. In the late 90s they made everything more round and "aerodynamic" and then things got ugly, but early 90s... some awesome retro cases from that time, I am rebuilding my childhood PC in one.
I think it's about nostalgia, cause I fondly look back at the 2000's computer designs, because they were just ridiculously experimental with see-thru plastics, LEDs, etc. Nowadays it's all standardized just like back in the AT days, except with much more variation. Case modding had it's peak in the 2000's, best off the shelf cases are available now and the beige boxes had their very own appeal, imho.
@@jayhill2193 Nostalgia is a big part of it. The beige cases get a bad reputation because most of them looked terrible after a few years. The problem was, they used plastic that yellowed over time when exposed to any amount of sunlight and generally wasn't very strong, also stained easily. So it was common to see yellowed, dirty, and banged up cases. But when they were new, they looked sleek. 2000s there was a lot of ugly sports car-looking designs, then finally in the 2010s they figured out clean lines were the way to go. But then RGB ruined everything LOL.
Loved my lanboy air. Great case for a few years. Even had a built in tool/screw tray. It was however a dust nightmare, the rubber suspension for the hard drives dried up, and in general it did fall apart. R.I.P. old case. You did your time.
Didn't even realize this was by LTT lol but when I did I was like oh this is just icing on the cake lmao
I had that first lanboy but it was to show off my overclocked P4 Northwood ^^
*It’s now safe to turn off*
*your computer*
The AT&T Unix PC, released in 1985 had a power switch which triggered a shutdown script, which would do things such as fsync, so that you wouldn't need to fsck your disk on boot.
Meanwhile, the Amiga, also released in 1985, had FFS (Fast File System) which would sync every 1 second, so that there was no risk of unwritten writes being lost through unintentional power offs. There was no shutdown script, you just flipped a switch and everything was safe.
I am an advocate of having at least one DVD drive in every pc. When my mom got an MRI a few years back, they gave her the files on a DVD and I had the only pc in the house with a DVD drive. If I didn't have that, we'd've had no way of getting those medical files. Because of this, if I ever have to get a new tower, I will make sure it has bays for optical drives.
Thank you this excellent rundown of PC cases. In Pakistan, we've had power outages for many years (a lot better now). I bought a laptop just to make sure that I wouldn't have to worry about power outage related issues with my PC's hard drive. Even though we use a UPS, the computer could restart when a power outage occurs.
Its been so long since i've used a custom PC. Good to know all the things that have been happening with PC cases this whole time.
Short version:
Steel Cube > Mesh Cube > Glass Cube > Mesh Cube with glass on sides
Thats awesome ❤️❤️🔥
You can thank Steve Jobs for the once-ubiquitous beige computer cases.
In 1977, four years before the IBM PC, Jobs decided the new Apple II should target business and home users rather than hobbyists. He felt that beige would be more appealing to them. Equipped with a set of Pantone chips, he agonized for weeks over exactly the right shade. He also stressed out about exactly how round the corners of the case should be. On the other hand, it was Steve Wozniak who insisted that the new system needed expansion slots. The IBM PC was largely a copy of the Apple II, with a slightly faster processor (4.77 MHz 8088 vs 1.02 MHz 6502).
Before that, the DEC PDP-11 minicomputer in the early 1970's had a groovy beige and magenta color scheme (and was about the size of a refrigerator); but almost all computers of that era, including most personal computers, had a more industrial high-tech look. The TRS-80, the closest competitor to the Apple II, was grey and black.
I take apart old computers for recycling. I see this whole gamut of pc development. From cases, to mb's, etc.
The last five years have been devolution, not evolution. I despise the industry's move towards minimalism completely. 5.25 bays are not just for optical drives and they gave cases greater utility.
Pretty sure soon most cases won't even fit 3.5 or 2.5 drives now that everyone uses M2
We've gone from everything being an external device back to.....everything being an external device..... amazing how history repeats itself, huh?
@@jstan5802 SSDs are fine for boot devices but terrible for bulk storage - unless you're Linus and can throw thousands of c-bills at it for shits and giggles. HDDs remain the most cost-effective for bulk storage for everyone else.
@@pleaseuseOdysee Yeah, I agree, personally I have a couple of 3.5 in my PC. However seeing how the industry is moving forward I won't be surprise if in the future we would have a couple of M2 at the back of the motherboard and phased out disk drives. However I think disk drives are still the more sensible option for NAS.
I still have my Lantec Airboy, exactly 0 he's mounts survive to this day so I'm brainstorming design ideas. Lol
Luckily my hdd mounts are still working fine but I've read that you can replace the rubber with surgical tubing.
big zipties- Thats whats holding all my drives in on my Lanboy Air- Zippies around the drives and then bigger ones threaded through to hold them into the case. Although my machines all SSD now, so the load isnt anywhere near as big on the mounts (And somehow i've squeezed a Ryzen 3900X and an EVGA 2080 super in there) and I'm brainstorming watercooling because why not push the old Lanboy Air as far as you possibly can!
@@ferremit I have a 3700x in mine. Used to have a gigabyte 5700xt but has since been downgraded to a 2060 ko.
I still remember the awe of seeing the first iMacs that came out. They really stood out in a time when beige boxes still came to mind when thinking about computers.
The Antec Lanboy was my jam back in the day! I still have the screw tray that fit inside it. Loved this case!
We need the evolution of Linus
"trends started moving towards builds looking more elegant and tidy"
like making graphic cards use external power and routting additional CPU power cables to another part of the mobo?
4:10 Nice to see the Define R5 make a cameo! It's a great case
I still use one :)
@@nevoyu 👍 Yep it's my first case and I plan on using it for my next build. I replaced the acrylic window side panel with a tempered glass one and it looks great
I'm going to forget all of this in 10 minutes or so, but y'all's presentation is great! Very cool.
czcams.com/video/TVGk0cMrACw/video.html ,
The bulky late 90s, early 2000s PC cases were better. Change my mind.
czcams.com/video/TVGk0cMrACw/video.html .
I don't understand why would someone think that.
@@hexerei02021 Mainly nostalgia.
@@Povilaz Okay that is probably the only reasonable reason :D
you're the first youtuber I came across who suggested "Dislike"
Thumbs up to you. great content
Dave2D does that too, can highly recommend his channel if you're into more laptops oriented stuff, he sometimes also does some other stuff too
Why the heck do you use a m-atx motherboard as an example for ATX form factor? There where so many extension cards around back in these days that likely no one would have changed to m-atx as it just hadn't enough slots to build in all the needed extension cards.
by the time mATX came along, we already had integrated audio and integrated video. Since mATX provided 2-3 slots, there was plenty of expansion for most users. You could easily add a dedicated AGP graphics card, a PCI sound card and a PCI modem in most cases.....
1:17 I am not even kidding,
This are the computers my school "computer lab" has .
TL;DR - Case designed peaked in the mid 2010's with a perfect combination of functionality, cooling and looks, and then RGB happened and now cases are garbage with no room for expansion.
Topic suggestion: What is Antimalware service Executable and why does it hog so much COU, RAM, Disk usage and battery.
Second topic: Why is the failure rate in laptop manufacturing so high. That is, many people get a laptop with major problems and have to return it. Even LTT got laptops with issues which were solved by reordering. (Surface Book 2)
Another topic suggestion: why are my bowels filled to the brim with liquid hot lava diarrhea?
There was also that whole transition from top mount to bottom mount PSUs. My first DIY tower case only had the one front fan mount, it relied entirely on the top mount power supply for exhaust cooling.
Linus: "I guess you could consider the wooden frame that the abacus came in the first computer case."
Me: Only if you consider an abacus a computer... in which case fingers and toes, sliderules, adding machines and calculators would be considered computers too - which they aren't.
The scary part is I've had almost all of these...
I want a modern case with one or two 5,25" for hotswap ssd's.
Corsair still puts them on their full tower cases iirc.
@@rockytom5889 Sorry for not specifying enough. I mean cases overall, not just the huge cases. They don't even have to be in the front.
Cooler Master NR600P has literally that.
@@FastSloth87 For only two drives and they stick out but it's a step in the right direction.
For years, I've wanted to take a beige box from the '90s and turn it into a sleeper PC. I'd keep an optical drive, though, but replace the CD or DVD drive with a Blu-ray drive. I'd also keep the floppy drive and turn it into a SD card reader, using the disks as caddies like Dr. Moddenstine did. If you haven't seen his video on his IBM Aptiva sleeper, you should. I like what he did with that rig.
ATX didn't popularize the I/O on the Back: LPX did.
And there were also Proto ATX Systems in the early 90 too, before ATX was announced.
Honestly, I wouldn't mind going back to a big beige box for my next build. I don't want glass on my LAN party PC, nor do I give single fuck about RGB lighting. A PC has to be fast and efficient and be able to do what I want it to do. That does not include being a safety hazard or a fucking light show.
The Evolution/History of RGB Lighting in the DIY PC space! let's go!
The Antec 900 was my first full build LAN pc case rather than building on top of the E-machines box I had previously owned. I thought the case was absolutely incredible, plastic side window with a fan mount, mesh front for up to something nuts like 9 full size bays, 200mm (!) fan built-in! Looking back at my old PC pictures the biggest issue, other than zero dust filters, was the complete lack of cable management bar a few plastic clips.
The move to raise the motherboard to allow routing is probably the biggest step forward in case design of the last 15 years.
I think the most important shift in cases, was knowing the name of your case manufacturer.
In the early-mid 90s, you maybe bought a branded mobo, CPU and graphics card. HDD, memory and optical was on size/speed (and maybe you were a baller that chose SCSI and a controller) - and your case choice was tower or desktop (and nobody cared about the PSU - it came with the case and they all powered whatever you had).
My first 'case experience' was buying a Lian Li. It cost as much as stuff I was putting inside the case, which seemed ridiculous - but it was oh so lovely.
(I had some 'funky' no-names between beige and the Lian and then some horrible 'gamer' cases I choose not to remember - but I knew who made them)
I'm now back to Lian Li. A beautiful TU150 in brushed aluminium and no f'in window.
Cooler Master CM690
Original, II, and III