In the year 1980 the majority of computer monitors were boxy video display terminals VDTs that were combined with attached keyboards. This kind of terminal would be configured to work with any type of computer that was then on the market. Do not get the wrong idea because there was not a large selection like today. With the help of a serial interface, the terminals were attached to the monitor computers. Back then the common name for the VDT was CRT - Cathode Ray Tube.

The most dominant operating system at the time was CP/m for 8 bit computers - Control Program for Microprocessors before DOS ever appeared. The old CP/M devices were created to use and to have separate memory maps video display and very discrete and cute  keyboards that were plugged into the devices, not like the future video displaying cards that will be used. VDM-1 was the most common know model and the almost extinct technological manufacturers will recognize this lost market and will begin to mainframe styles for terminals to the community that had CP/M.  The best pitch at that time worked and was known as 'just like a real computer, so soon all the CP/M computers were exclusive.

The early game machines and Apple computers decided to connect it to the monitor not to the terminal, as Apple had built in keyboards and were part of a system already and all you will miss was a computer monitor after you would plug it in. Unlike the terminals, the computer monitors will look like television sets without the tuner that was incorporated in them and in many cases people decided that it was better to use directly a television set. With a special adapter RF that you would have connected to the antenna of your TV, some computers from the 1980 could have been used with any television set for instance like the Commodores Vic 20, 64 and 128.

In time PC-DOS computers came out from IBM and they were dubbed three parts computers. According to Moonie Bronstein, that was a used car dealer, many of the market users that were advisers in buying computers sets and systems, had their start in the car world where terms as 4 pieces or 3 pieces were marketing terms and meant something, a real value. Another explanation was that the three component part would be found and would be a real symbol on every field and so it got to the technological one as well. The monitor, the keyboard and the computer box will make it for the whole computer system a new revolutionary way of working.

IBM was the first to launch on the market the PC-DOS computers that had a separate keyboard and monitor, this being directly connected to the computer through a display device connection and they were like an explosion on the field. These monitors will use video cards that will be IBM monochrome MDA or Hercules, which is the first ad on cards third party or the IBM color graphics CGA 9 card.

The monitors have evolved from back then and you can find them in many different shapes and sizes just to fit you technological need now but remember that there is a story behind every device.