MS DOS was one thing. If you powered your PC down while DOS was running, nothing too terrible would happen.

But God help you if you powered down a PC while some of the first versions of Windows were running. You probably need IT to get your computer started back up again, and even then you could lose critical data.

These days, powering down ain't nearly such a big thing. My current phone needs to be restarted, NOT powered down and powered back up, to update system software.

Remember thermal fax paper? My first work PC in the 1980s was attached to a thermal paper printer.

Yikes!