"We picked up an old pc 486/33 with 4mb ram. I remember trying to get windows 3.1 to display 256color with no luck at all."
Welcome to the Amiga world. I can relate to your above statement. I sold my A2000 for $2500 back in 1988 and bought a PC 486DX33 with 1 meg of ram and could run just about NOTHING. Maybe it was because I was trying to get to work like my Amiga. So I returned it and bought an A4000/030 and it is still very much alive.
Once again "WELCOME". :-D