In the old days, before laptops, we used to call the case and everything in it the CPU. You had your monitor, keyboard, mouse, maybe printer, maybe modem, and they would all plug into the "CPU." Yes, we knew there was also a chip inside called that but we didn't get all pedantic about it.

With that in mind: Place the CPU fan on the heat sink... That's exactly what they did.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That "we" isn't global. Some called it "the CPU", some called it "the hard drive", some made fun of those two groups for not knowing what they were talking about.

[–] frostysauce@lemmy.world 3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Oh, yes, I forgot it was also the hard drive! Now that I think about it, I'm not sure the proper name. Today I'd just call it the tower, but I'm not sure what the square ones that sat with the monitor on top would be called.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 points 17 hours ago

I think those are where the name "desktop" comes from, though that term now refers to other computer things.

I refer to them as "tower", "case" (which is technically just the shell and frame, but can include the contents), "computer", or "machine".