Although I used it in the early nineties, I had a much different experience than you mention. TP had Turbo Vision, a very usable windowing library. You could open code in one window and help in another ... hotkeys opened up the help on the current word etc.

I also dialed into BBSs and downloaded .gifs of elle macpherson, so plenty to do. All on a 386/40. I moved up to a 486/40 at some point.

p.s. You can't go back.