Hey guys
I know there's a debate sometimes about what is and what is not available re: high tech pre-1997, so for clarity's sake you might all want to take a gander at this:
http://books.google.com/books/serial...gbs_navlinks_s
This is all issues of Information World going back to 1982 (when it was the Intelligent Machines Journal). I thought it might shed some light on things a bit. I mean not that much of it will still be working but it might help you decide that if you're going to throw the party a bone and let them find a working desktop PC or laptop or server just what exactly it would look and feel like and what OS it would be running...
EDIT: a discussion of laptops came up. Here is the November 24, 1997 (day before!) issue of InfoWorld and a state-of-the-art notebook advertisement...
http://books.google.com/books?id=zjs...page&q&f=false