Murphy then used keystrokes on his "computer board" to toggle through a series of all-text screens to show how he and other doctors in the emergency department accessed the information they needed.

The computer room was the hub for homework, weird chat room conversations, and early online games — the first time my generation saw tech truly take root in our homes.

But 386 PCs—especially faster ones with a decent amount of RAM, like the one in the Pocket 386—also do a decent job with early-'90s graphical operating systems like Windows 3.1, and they'll ...