I guess this is interesting for recent generations, but heavy swap file use was just par for the course back in the 80s/90s when addressable memory was limited and few people could afford to purchase as much RAM as their system used.
Not counting ATARI 800XL, my first PC was PC XT 8088/4.77MHz 640K RAM 20MB HDD,FDD 5.25,MS DOS 2.0
and a Hercules monitor. I bought it in 1990 for about 45.000CZK, which at that time was the equivalent of fifteen yearly salaries.
It's really unbelievable how far things have come in 30 years....