My coworkers think I'm insane, but I do my side projects in C because I find it so much more relaxing and satisfying than what I do at work (Angular and C#). They can't understand why I find C relaxing because they find it terrifying. I just find it so much simpler to work with functions, structs and pointers rather than abstraction chains ten layers deep.

Granted, I'm using it on homemade game engines, which are very amenable to the simple type of code C allows you to write. I wouldn't want to write an HTTP server in it. But for what I build, I find using C to be the equivalent of woodworking, compared to the Ikea furniture I put together at work.

I know I don't have the time but I'd love to chip away at a VGA game project on a fast 486 or low end Pentium, using Turbo C or maybe djgpp

The PC of that era was such an unpredictable mess of components, you couldn't even assume a specific sound card was present. VGA 256-color modes didn't even have square pixels unless you went Mode-X which was rather annoying to program for.

I think there are far better retro hardware choices to relive writing native programs for. Stuff you'll actually be able to ensure will run successfully with full graphics and sound capabilities on every instance of the thing. C64, Amiga, etc. There's a reason the x86 PC severely lagged behind in the demoscene for ages, it was just miserable hardware to support.

Most games targeted SB/Adlib and almost every game used 320x200, oblong pixels and all