Back in the early 00's I used DSL in university as it has an x86 emulator included. I could plug the USB in and run Linux under Windows. Kept that on a "huge" 512MB thumb drive that cost over $100. Still have that drive and it still works.

Damn Small was my first ‘home’ distro if only because it took roughly four hours to download the ISO on dialup.

Those were some… painful times.