Man I got a computer engineering degree in 2015 with a $200 Chromebook chrooted into Debian. And I worked professionally for years on an 8gb MacBook Air. The Neo is definitely something younger me would be interested in.
C dev wasn't an issue back in the 1 GB or 256 MB or 16 MB days either. You just didn't use to have a Chrome tab open that by itself is eating 345 MB just to show a simple tutorial page.
C dev wasn't a problem with MSDOS and 640K either. With CP/M and 64K it was a challenge I think. Struggling to remember the details on that and too lazy to research it right now.
Are there even any x86 Chromebooks left at that price point? They are only one that are still capable of chrooting into Linux. ARM Chromebooks remain locked up.
Looking at BestBuy, category chromebook, the first one that comes up is $150, intel n4500.
I don't know if this is particularly current or what, or if it's easy to setup to run another OS or whatever, but it meets your price and architecture criteria.
