yeah bro, I think you are asking about the old movies like situation like as if in Wargames 1 and 2, Hackers etc..(lolzz..m sometyms funny)....
the point is that at that time basic "Unix" kernel was easily available on the internet which is not the case now...distributions are more easily available..
You may install any of the distributions of "Linux",(whichever is lightest,,considering your old pc) and may know some facts::
1.you can startup any distribution without gui(for always)..dont install the X server...
2.Even if you installed,, just change the runlevel of your distribution i.e. run it in run level 3(it is for text mode only..no gui..)
there are some runlevels already defined ::
you may give this pdf a try:
nicely written there)
https://www.hentzenwerke.com/wp/fromgui_totext.pdf
hope it helps::
---------- Post added at 01:39 ---------- Previous post was at 01:36 ----------
@yura717
some of the programs which were made previously depended on kernel now because at that time they were made using the system calls that were defined within initial kernel versions..but there after 2.X kernel (dont exactly remember),, systems calls are updated heavily i.e. their name changed as it happens in every major release and may vary from kernel to kernel...
hope it helped you to understand..