Re: I'm impressed
Not to say that the 386 wasn't needed, but I'm pretty sure an 286 could have run a pre-emptive multitasking OS (without memory management) and had a hardware abstraction layer, it's just everybody ran DOS so hardware was used to solve the problem. Somebody's even managed it with a Z80.
x86 is far too complicated and over-engineered for what it delivers and this is why it's creaking at the seams now.