Okay? You're talking about the requirements for new computers in the era, that retail software could assume. Meanwhile, I'm talking about the requirements for consumer electronics sold into the market in the era; where, to have the widest TAM, companies would usually design connectivity around the assumption that the person purchasing the device has a very old computer.
I was there, period. If by year 2001 you didn't have a CD drive to play Unreal (1998), Deus Ex (2000) or Max Payne (2001), your PC was seriously outdated junk and no company would take your PC seriously even for office work.
In 1999, yes, maybe a 486 with Windows 95 could be barely usable, but most basic software required a Pentium with MMX because of multimedia and optimisations. That's it. We already were in the Pentium II era, not owning a K6 or Pentium MMX
would outclass you in a breeze for any serious task.
AMD and VIA CPU's were really cheap and by 1999 having a machine with a Pentium MMX-like specs with a CDROM was the norm because of that.
And OFC by 1999 DOS was pretty much dead and everyone switched to Windows 95 at least.
Yes, there were people and nerds like me in 2004 totally being able to use FreeBSD/Linux under a 486 with 16MB of RAM to play downscaled MP3's, nethack and surf the web with Lynx. But for sure we weren't the target of commercial software vendors.
By the year 2001, the minimal computer specs skyrocketed for everyone since 1997.
