"The box stated that it required a 386DX or better processor, 4 MB of more of RAM, and approximately 50 MB of disk space. Nothing stopped you from installing it on a 386SX. I know because I tried it, mostly out of morbid curiosity. It took forever to install. Booting took forever too. And once it managed to boot, it took forever to do anything.

But if you had a system that met the minimum stated requirements, the experience was still pretty terrible.

The minimum most of us recommended at the time for acceptable performance was a 486 faster than 33 MHz, 8 MB of RAM, and 100 MB of disk space. And some will take issue with that today, because the experience on a machine like that still wasn’t very good. You had to draw the line somewhere, and then, as now, different people had different definitions of words like “minimum” and “acceptable.”

You really needed a Pentium-class machine to be happy with Win95, and I think Win95 did a lot to goose Pentium sales for Intel. If you could afford a 100 or 120 MHz Pentium with 16 or 32 MB of RAM and at least a 540 megabyte hard drive, you were much happier with it."

I had a Pentium 100MHz, and 8MB was acceptable, although I had a friend with 16MB and a 166MHz, and the grass always seemed greener. He was able to play Tomb Raider.

I make a lot of retro videos and tested a 386 on 4MB of RAM here: https://github.com/hatonthecat/linux_distro_tests#9-26-24-wi...

https://nand2mario.github.io/posts/2026/z486/ https://ei2030.github.io/FemtoTX/#about One can make Windows 95 solar powered again. The first time was at ISSCC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juy8xP-hUtA

I had a 486 sx4 100 and was more or less ok