Minimum hardware for EMC

Before I waste time trying, I wanted to get some peoples experience
on using EMC.

I've run linux on everything from piddly 386-16/4b on up, and have
a nice rackmount 486-33 8/mb system already set up with linux and the RT
extensions. X runs, although I don't use it much. Will this setup
reasonably run a three stepper CNC mill? I'm not looking for high
speed feed rates; I'll be quite content to take small bites and many
slow
passes if it makes the part. So, to the EMC'ers who are in the know:

1) Will EMC run OK on this system?
2) Will the slower system affect feed rates, etc.
3) Obviously, with 8mb of RAM, I've got lots of swap. Will swap
use inhibit EMC performance?
4) For a mini mill setup, driving steppers over the parallel port,
which task should I use (steppermod, freqmod, minimill, bridgport,
etc.)
5) How about #5, once I finish my DRO card (It's a custom take off on
the
standard homebrew DRO card, designed to use a bunch of HCTL-2016
encoder
interface chips I had laying around. I can modify the source, but
was wondering what task is best for closing the loop (obviously I
have to
account for deadband, etc with this).

I'd like to use this system since I could mount my drives, the computer,
etc in a
nice 19" rack.

Thanks in advance!
John Murphy