Good thread
I remained 8-bit for waaaay too long, sticking to my trusty Beeb until 1998!
Got my 1st PC in early 1999, through a grant, therefore not mega specs. P II 350MHz, 64MB RAM, 3.2 GB hard drive, 40-speed CDROM, Soundblaster 16, some crappy 2MB ATI card, 230W PSU, all in a standard height beige case. The PSU blew early on. Covered by on-site warranty though, so engineer popped another 230W in and that blew as well lol. Went back to his van and fetched a 300W which went in fine. Printer and scanner were also included in the grant. Deskjet 695 and Scanjet 5200 respectively. Windows-wise, I went for 95 instead of 98 because I preferred to get OSes that were on final versions, where 98 was still only on first edition at that time.
Later on, I doubled the memory to 128MB, installed a second hard disk (6.4GB), added a CD rewriter, got shot of the 2MB ATI in favour of a Voodoo 4 and got heavily addicted to Final Fantasy 7 & 8. Good times