I think what people tend to miss is that it took a very long time for that to happen. It took until the early 90s for the 386 to get cheap enough to start outselling the 286. Even after Intel dropped it, AMD and Harris kept releasing versions that were faster and cheaper than the low-end 386es.

Yes, my 386SX 20Mhz with hopping 2MB and a 40MB HDD was about 1 500 euros in 1990, when the minimum wage was around 300 euros.

It was bought via credit and if I make the inflation calculation for today's money it would be a big pile of notes.

Same machine, investment was so big that my dad had to ask for a payroll advance from his boss, given I was struggling with Pascal (and my then computer was a Vic20). Turns out the boss had studied in the same college I was in, his answer was: "Whatever your kid need".

And that's how I got my hands on a 386sx. Around 1992 I installed Xenix and became a Unix nerd.

I love you, dad.

And that would be obsolete by 1994.

Yep, bought a Pentium 66 MHz in 1995 with 8 MB, around the same price.

OS/2 was always tied to the 80286. Even 2.0 still used 16bit device drivers, and used the 16bit stuff at its core.

And OS/2.