But why does it need updates if it works? Just don’t connect it to the Internet and you can run it until either it dies or you die.

If it’s from 20 years ago then isn’t that like 15 years too new to be affected by this patch?

Isn’t that just Rocky configuring the kernel that way? You’re free to compile your own kernel and it’ll still support even old pentiums, just not i486 in new versions