My first PC was a beige box custom bought at a local PC store. It had an AMD CPU -- K-2. Way more bang for the buck than the Compaq, Packard Bell, HP's of that era. All the manuals for the components were in the motherboard box. Then I started building my own PC's after that one.
I rather thought they were bad because other people said they were bad. Hip to hate the bad stuff, you know? The DOS prompt always worked and everything.. So...