I use a 1998 "Wallstreet" PowerBook G3 running OS 9.2 and MS Office 98 for word processing, some email, and spreadsheets. No Wi-Fi, so I tether it to another laptop via Ethernet.
I love the G3 PowerBooks! I drove a Pismo upgraded with the G4 card, maxed memory, and a CardBus Wi-Fi card for N150 speeds in OS X; I dual booted 9.2 and 10.4 Tiger.
I built that machine from three broken PowerBooks in 2006 and used it daily until my ex-wife took it in the divorce back in 2010 (she hated Macs but she knew it would hurt me to take it). Otherwise I'd probably still be using it for basic tasks like distraction-free writing or classic Mac games.
Probably widescreen with a flimsy keyboard, while older laptops are more likely to be 4:3 with a nicer keyboard.
Or maybe to avoid getting distracted by all the stuff available on newer computers (going to guess much of the internet is not easily accessible from Mac OS 9.2).
