It's not just that programs had small images. The noteworthy thing is that they weren't small due to externalizing their dependencies. They relied on no third p

It's not just that programs had small images. The noteworthy thing is that they weren't small due to externalizing their dependencies. They relied on no third party code other than a few meagre services of the operating system. They did their own sound and graphics down to the pixel level. We can't compare 40 KB image today to a 40 KB image from 1980 something, if the contemporary one relies on 100 MB of external cruft, like a rich programming language runtime (fetched and install separately) and packages.