No idea why they’d want those tethered caps. My speculation (and that’s 100% unfounded, so take it as you will) is that they are lobbying for something simple and cheap (tethered caps, plastic straws, etc), to blind people from the real environmental issues that are far more costly to tackle. Kind of like the plastic recycle logo, which is a total scam, but makes people feel good enough to not further question the big corps’ recycling practices.
I have a 486, but with MS-DOS 6.2 and Norton Commander as a UI. Haven’t booted it up for about a decade, though, but don’t see a reason why it shouldn’t work. My Win98SE computer (Pentium 100), on the other hand, is still my gaming rig. Don’t need anything better for HoMM2, Master of Orion 2, and TES: Daggerfall.