There were so many cool exotic systems that I read about in books and magazines, but never had the resources or knew the right people to actually play with. Parents and school admins barely knew what that newfangled information superhighway was, and later on at best the stock response to "I want to learn C" was "we aren't paying $1,000 for Visual Studio" - GNU was a completely unknown concept until I stumbled across Slashdot some time in 2000. I imagine similar stories played out for many a mid-90s rural computer nerd.

Second-hand nostalgia, if you will.