If I recall correctly Apple had to buy enormous numbers of CNC machines in order to build laptops that way. It was considered insane by the industry at the time.

Yup. The original article is gone, however there is the key excerpt in an old HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532257

Apple, unlike a lot, if not all large companies (who are run by MBA beancounter morons), holds insanely large amounts of cash. That is how they can go and buy up entire markets of vendors - CNC mills, TSMC's entire production capacity for a year or two, specialized drills, god knows what else.

They effectively price out all potential competitors at once for years at a time. Even if Microsoft or Samsung would want to compete with Apple and make their own full aluminium cases, LED microdots or whatever - they could not because Apple bought exclusivity rights to the machines necessary.

Of course, there's nothing stopping Microsoft or Samsung to do the same in theory... the problem these companies have is that building the war chest necessary would drag down their stonk price way too much.

Now it makes complete sense. Sort of like how crowbarring a computer into a laptop form factor was considered insane back in the early 90s.