Let me be one of the early birds in this forum. I want to learn C#. So I've located some tutorials. Now I need the compiler. I get directed to Microsoft, and they want me to download a 127MB (!) SDK, containing C#. OK, that's big, but I've got plenty of hard drive space. But then I read on, and there's no mentioning of it running on Windows 98, which is what I use at home. Then somewhere (but I can't find this now), I read that it is recommended I run it on a stand-alone machine because it's in beta, and might corrupt other software.

I can't convert my home PC just for this purpose.

Recommendations?