I had a Giant ATX somethingorother that I believe was from a similar era. Double butted frame, cromo fork. It was relatively light for a mountain bike of the time and very comfortable. I put risers with a little bit of sweep on em and converted it to a 1X7 and sold it as a city bike.

Unfortunately I had issues with heel strike when I attached my chainstay mounted trailer. As such, I think the only concern with turning your bike into a touring machine would be the length of the chainstay. You may want to check that out by mounting a rack and set of panniers before dropping a lot of time or effort into modifications!