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On of my favourite hardware investments as a teenager trying to learn c and assembly under dos was a caching hard drive controller.

It made those post crash reboots so much faster!

Talk about solving the wrong problem...

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My roommate with the 386 running DOS tried to explain extended vs. expanded memory and then near and far pointers in C to me. It didn't make any sense to me. I just asked him "Why isn't memory just memory like on the VAX?" He was so used to the limitations of 16-bit x86 and DOS. Neither of us even understood the concept of a "32-bit flat memory model."

I had been spoiled by the VAX and didn't know it was a $200,000 or $1 million system. I found this price list from 1991 but it's hard to figure out how much a system cost.

https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/priceLists/US_Sy...

VAXstations and MicroVAXes weren't that expensive. I knew a guy with a small business that had a VAXStation 3100 or maybe it was a 4000, back in 1991 or 92.

I think it was a VAXserver 3000 series. The pricelist I found shows it was probably in the $15K to $25K range

I have a MicroVAX in my living room that I use as an end table.

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