Lets talk OG SFF Cases. Who do you think started it? Where did you start?

[VisualStim]

thought I strike up a conversation and ask people where they started. I think most of this forum are millennials and not as much gen Zs.

Ill start. Im pretty old I was playing Everquest and moved to FFXI. When I started building my first PCs I had this. The Antec Aria


Back then there was no such thing as a SFF PSU you were basically stuck with an ATX PSU pretty horrible

I think the case that started SFF was the Lian Li Q25B, A LOT of people bought this case, We still didnt have SFF PSUs and has been out for a better part of a decade plus. I think the M1 Case was loosely based off this case as well

 

[Wyd4]

I am not sure what qualifies as old, but I got the smaller bug about 10 years ago with my Silverstone Fortress mATX. I wouldnt say it was SFF (or maybe it was, never measured it as such), however it had a small footprint and you could put a full sized system in it. Back then i was playing the original HalfLife Deathmatch and CS etc etc. Got into WoW for a while.
From there I now have the ncase m1, mostly use it for media consumption, SIM racing and single player story/adventure/pew pew games.

 

[rfarmer]

First computer I built for myself was an AMD 2600+ Barton core, in an extremely ugly beige midtower. First build I did that was SFF was a Rosewill U2 Legacy (Jonsbo clone).

Came out pretty good but it was one of the toughest builds I had ever done.

 

[tinyitx]

I built my first PC with an Intel Northwood 2.53GHz CPU in a Chieftec case back in 2002. Its 1mm SECC construction makes it very very heavy despite being a mid tower. I still remember how sore my arms were after hauling it back home. Back in those days, 80mm and 92mm fans were the norm and this case has a rear 120mm (!). Used it for 6 years before moving to a Cooler Master.
https://skinflint.co.uk/chieftec-mesh-lcx-01b-b-sl-black-a123344.html

I only entered into this SFF arena last year and so I am really a SFF newbie.
I am not using a chassis but an open test bench (Streacom BC1 Mini). Very small footprint, compact and light weight.

 

[loader963]

I guess mine is more recent. I saw the NFC S4M and loved it but wanted to be able to use standard parts. Went and got a node 202 and then a rvz02 and snowballed from there.

 

[confusis]

My first PC was a Baby-AT desktop form factor system by some NZ OEM. That's what got me started, I figure.

 

[DontPeek]

For me it was the original steam machine concept that got me interested in SFF.

Then my first case was a Fractal Node 304.

 

[Phuncz]

I was into huge cases (120L behemoth was the pinnacle) and then promptly go to a 11L Shuttle SG33G5. Discovering how fun it was to tetris hardware in, min-maxing performance and finding unconventional solutions to problems was it for me.

 

[Aux]

ok, first pc was a Dell . . . keeping it alive got me interested
went homebuilt - 48 litres because of the flexibility and cost and got a lian li ATX case, spent some time making it cool ok
went small - 25 litres because of the size and weight of ATX cases, fed up of a 48 litree case taking up deskspace either
on or under the desk. Also made it a lot easier when I travel, but not easy enough

Now I am working on a scratch built case running to 11.6 litres so there is a pattern . .

my inspiration
I followed the sentry design and build process with great interest, very closely,
The Dan A4 and the steam concept machine also figure in there

and voila, as they say

 

[ignsvn]

First PC was a pre-owned no brand running Intel 486 or something, on Windows 3.1x.

Reason going to SFF.. Was buying computer parts.. Planned to get a Cooler Master mini tower but saw Silverstone SG08.

I straight away changed my shopping list: motherboard from mATX to mini ITX, CPU cooler from Evo 212 to Noctua L12, etc.

I never looked back.

Currently having fun with my MI-6: a great, balanced case if you ask me. Portable enough at 6.7L, 66mm CPU cooler room, SFX psu, room for 2x2.5 drives.

 

[Solo]

The iMac G4 was the thing that got me interested in computer hardware design. It was a strange obsession.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

My first computer was an Amiga 2000 with 1MB of RAM and no HDD (everything ran of floppy disks). It was in 1989 and I was 9 years old.

My first PC was an industrial IBM 486 with a Model M keyboard, 16MB of RAM, 200MB HDD and a tape drive for backup (yes, units are Megabytes).

Always had a sweet spot for mini tower before SFF was a thing, never liked midi or full size towers.

My first encounter with pure SFF was in the early 2000's and it was a VIA Epia at work.

 

[neilhart]

This is one of my SFF hacks from 2013 and it is documented at

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/neilharts-scratch-build-case-2.89452/

Neil

 

[Stevo_]

Started with traditional at the time PC-AT size cases, then got one of these Dell slim towers circa 2005-ish(mine was actually a Dimension 5100C, but best pic Isaw) guessing about the size of a Node 202 ran for about 10 years(still in use by a friend), then a Node 304 which had a lot of wasted space and too much desktop, then in quick succession L1 -> L2 -> NFC S4, with some Morex 557s fanless on the side.

 

[Gautam]

AOpen H340H was my first. Console-style cases have appealed to me since.

 

[BikingViking11]

My first was a Chyang Fun in 2003:

Funny note: When I did an image search to get the exact model Google gave a suggested related search of Deep Fryer.

EDIT: The first truly tiny computers I tinkered with were some Athlon II desktops from Japan. A fellow forum member lived very near the US NEC headquarters and when they pulled out of the US market they sold these thin desktops off literally by the pallet load. I bought several really cheap and tinkered around with them as much as I could, not understanding any Japanese and finding little to no support or drivers for them. Having built a few machines by then I was fascinated by how compactly they had crammed all the same components into a case the size of a thick book. One of them was the shop computer at the bicycle shop and played a continuous loop of "stoke" videos on the big TV screen as well as internet radio over the sound system.

 

[annasoh323]

Fun thread, thanks @VisualStim! I've got no historical context on SFF so I'll have to pass on that part of the conversation starter.

My first computer upgrade was to add an nVidia AGP video card to my family's eMachine so I could play Lego Star Wars. I was right around 13 years old. In high school, I watched a friend get help from a teacher build his first system and I eyed that enviously (but I didn't have money to foot the bill). Through college, I was stuck with laptops since I needed to fly back and forth.

Finally, I had my laptop die two years ago and I told myself it was time. The smallest form factor I knew of at the time was mATX. I knew I wanted small since I was (and still am) something of a vagabond in my parent's house (oops, need to cut them a rent check for this month). My friend at work mentioned mITX and my world changed. I had a goal in mind. I devoured hours of video content on mITX builds and thousands of words of build guides and the like. Somehow, I never stumbled on SFFForum (sadly). In January of '17, Intel was king and Ryzen was bit a glimmer of hope on the horyzen. That's how I bought into my 7600K + GTX 1070 system in a Silverstone RVZ02.

I learned a lot in that build, especially with respect to cable management and motherboard layout (I still brood over the USB 3.0 header placement on the Gigabyte Z270N-WiFi). Eventually, I found a build using the Salvo Studios S400 on PCPP which led me here to the forum. Been my home ever since.

 

[FoskcoRS5]

I guess mine is more recent. I saw the NFC S4M and loved it but wanted to be able to use standard parts. Went and got a node 202 and then a rvz02 and snowballed from there.

I have basically the same story in regard to the NFC S4 Mini in mid 2016. I picked up a Corsair 250D but it didn't feel SFF to me.

Ended up picking up a Cerberus because mATX was really appealing and the chassis was the smallest mATX chassis I could find.

 

[rfarmer]

Fun thread, thanks @VisualStim! I've got no historical context on SFF so I'll have to pass on that part of the conversation starter.

My first computer upgrade was to add an nVidia AGP video card to my family's eMachine so I could play Lego Star Wars. I was right around 13 years old. In high school, I watched a friend get help from a teacher build his first system and I eyed that enviously (but I didn't have money to foot the bill). Through college, I was stuck with laptops since I needed to fly back and forth.

Finally, I had my laptop die two years ago and I told myself it was time. The smallest form factor I knew of at the time was mATX. I knew I wanted small since I was (and still am) something of a vagabond in my parent's house (oops, need to cut them a rent check for this month). My friend at work mentioned mITX and my world changed. I had a goal in mind. I devoured hours of video content on mITX builds and thousands of words of build guides and the like. Somehow, I never stumbled on SFFForum (sadly). In January of '17, Intel was king and Ryzen was bit a glimmer of hope on the horyzen. That's how I bought into my 7600K + GTX 1070 system in a Silverstone RVZ02.

I learned a lot in that build, especially with respect to cable management and motherboard layout (I still brood over the USB 3.0 header placement on the Gigabyte Z270N-WiFi). Eventually, I found a build using the Salvo Studios S400 on PCPP which led me here to the forum. Been my home ever since.

I know exactly what you are talking about, I had the Gigabyte Z170 Gaming 5 and it had the same USB 3.0 header placement. Wasn't a problem when I first got it and had a watercooled build but when I switched to air and was using a Dark Rock TF it was almost impossible to get the cable installed.

 

[Arboreal]

Finally got round to posting here. I think the Silverstone SG01 and SG2 were SFF ground breakers for mATX well before ITX was a thing.
For me, the SG05 was my entry into SFF, having wanted n ITX motherboard from when they only had underpowered VIA CPUs in them.

My first ITX board was an industrial ITX board that took CoreDuo laptop CPUs and desktop memory. Unusually, it had a 16x PCIe slot and a PCI slot inboard of it, so the IO was non standard. It is still alive in a friend's arcade machine!

After that was the only motherboard I have that had died...a Zotac s775 ITX. Counting up, I am now on ITX board number 8 as of this week!
4 of those are still current, with the Gigabyte H55N being the oldest.