I worked in one of those independent computer stores in the 90s, assembling white box PCs in a dimly lit back room, and systematically removing drivers on early Win95 machines until they'd stop crashing to identify which one was buggy.
PCs were so dynamic at the time, half my paychecks were spent on discounted upgrades before I ever saw the paper. EDO ram? sign me up. 512K of pipelined burst L2 cache? yes please. HX chipset? of course. Dual socket pentium pros? I need a raise.
Similar background re: PC building here, working at a shop that built PCs in the late 90s. I remember seeing boards with these new-fangled USB ports, DIMM memory, Pentium II, the first 3D accelerators, etc. It was a fun time. I got in to the industry right at the end of AT-style boards and power supplies and mostly missed having to deal with that stuff (other than in my personal life, where I still had old stuff).