> I had a 386 with 4MB RAM and am not the least nostalgic about it. In fact damn near everything about that machine was limiting and something I couldn't wait to replace with something newer.
It is difficult to be nostalgic about the machines lacking, for want of a better term, a soul. PC compatibles are as soulless as it gets. Quite soon after introduction, they became part of the endless treadmill of faster CPU - more memory - better graphics - larger HDDs. (That doesn't stop people being nostalgic about software running on PCs, again with that same basic characteristic.)
I had the weirdest 286 clone I'm quite nostalgic about - a tiny little thing with a 9" monochrome screen and 40Mb HDD that I learned C on. Whole thing was shrunk in the same proportion as the monitor, so it looked like a shrinky-dink version of a standard desktop of the era. The CPU component would have been about 8" wide. I tricked it out with a 28.8k modem so I could get to local BBSes.
This "tied an onion to my belt" reminiscence may go to support your theory.
It is difficult to be nostalgic about the machines lacking, for want of a better term, a soul. PC compatibles are as soulless as it gets. Quite soon after introduction, they became part of the endless treadmill of faster CPU - more memory - better graphics - larger HDDs. (That doesn't stop people being nostalgic about software running on PCs, again with that same basic characteristic.)