Source: http://www.megalextoria.com/wordpress/index.php/2017/02/17/boot-april-1997/
boot premeired in 1996 as a computer magazine for hardware enthusiasts. It emphasized coverage of various high performance PC components that you would use to upgrade or build your own PC. It also covered various pre-built systems and other technology (like PDAs as in this example). boot became Maximum PC in 1998 and is still being published.
The turn of the last century was certainly a different time as this issue shows. PDAs like the new Palm Pilot were all the rage (there were no 'smart phones' yet and many people still didn't have cell phones). 3D accelerated video cards were still relatively new and the most powerful CPU was a Pentium MMX.