Console steel guitars are typically heavier instruments that have multiple necks and/or more than six strings per neck and are therefore not manageable on the player's lap.

This type of instrument was created when players in the late 1940s needed to play in different keys and with different chords than the lap steel afforded.

The player could then easily switch to a different neck on the same instrument, but this made the instrument so heavy and cumbersome that it could not be easily held on the lap.

[2] Trying to solve the problem with multiple necks led to the invention of the pedal steel guitar in the 1950s.

[4] There is a certain amount of disagreement about the preferred terms for non-pedal instruments.