I remember the shift. I remember the upgrade from my VIC-20 to my XT to my 586, but I don't remember life being that much different. The biggest difference, for me, is this whole notion of "being available everywhere all the time" that came along first with cellphones and then doubled down with smartphones. I remember being able to take off on my bike, going to a park, and reading a book with absolutely no distraction at all. Or going to the cabin and not having an Internet connection.
Think about it: Intel Sandy Bridge and AMD Bulldozer CPUs are still perfectly practical to use today for all everyday tasks if we put aside arbitrary software limitations (read: Windows 11). Go and install Windows 10 on a Sandy Bridge, it'll be just as practically-performant as the latest Raptor Lake for all your everyday computing needs.
It's kind of interesting to look back when you're one of the guys who also witnessed the mindblowing advances in computing we had in the 90s and 00s (like you and me). The steep climb, followed by the leveling off.
Yeah, that steep climb was amazing! Going from 3kB of RAM, to 640kB of RAM, to 16MB of RAM, to 1GB, to 16GB was incredible. I remember my first dual CPU computer and being blown away that I could burn a CD, listen to music, and play Counterstrike at the same time (Abit BP6, 2x Celeron 450s). Maybe if I still gamed I’d be more blown away by how much things continue to evolve but in a lot of ways the newer CPUs and more RAM etc. mostly just feel like a way to compensate for increasingly bloated software in my day-to-day “office work” activities.
I'm only 54 but the world did change radically since I was a teenager. That's only 10 years since the 1993 benchmark of "alien". That was a wild 10 years.