I made my own distro back then. Started from source with everything. It fit on a 3.5" floppy, and had room for an IPX client that could download stuff from a fi

I made my own distro back then. Started from source with everything. It fit on a 3.5" floppy, and had room for an IPX client that could download stuff from a fileserver, after formatting the local drive (it was an automated reinstaller for a computer lab when kids trashed the Win16 computers). That's how I learned the whole boot chain diagram - hands on, trial and error.