Comment Re:Not a 486 thing, but... (Score 1) 66
The software is already written.
Yes it's already written. Use a kernel with the code still there. It's not like your 486 will have any application that requires the latest kernel, if your system even manages to boot at all.
The problem with written code is that if it remains "supported" it places a burden on all other code changes made to the product. Someone needs to do regression testing to make sure it's not broken. Someone needs to do security auditing and potential bug fixing. And above all, these are not reasonable requirements for hardware that old. Hence "not supported" means "not supported" i.e. the programmer won't or in some cases actually can't support it.
Software is not hardware, you can run old software. It's still there. It's not like the network switch example above.