Same thing for me, the Aptiva was the first computer I actually owned, and learned how to program on. I still have mine, upstairs in a closet, though it is the flat desktop case and not a tower. Every few years when I am cleaning past debris I think "why do I keep this thing?" and somehow manage to hold onto it.
Yeah, obviously there is nostalgia value for a lot of people but objectively it's a pretty average looking case even for the era... which leads me to ask this: what _was_ the best looking computer case of the retro era?
See the GP's comment about SGI- SGI cases were still some kind of box or tower, but usually with curvy accents and bright colors at least. Otherwise, I wish I had managed to pick up a NeXT when they were not as rare as they are now. Apple of course didn't make any regular-looking towers or desktops while Steve Jobs was in control. Sun tried a bunch of different form factors in the Sparcstation line, but they were generally all beige boxes of some sort or another. In IBM-compatibles, there were... not many I can recall that stood out. IBM themselves had some slightly unusual designs in the PS/2 series, like the model 25, but nothing that was particularly nice-looking.
Curious what other people have to say about other IBM compatibles in this regard. I have a lot of computers but haven't seen everything yet.
I later broke it learning how to work on PCs as a child. If I can find where it ended up, I may very well do the same build.