Seconded. I learned assembly code on a DOS 2.0 machine by disassembling tons of random bytes and making a hex->assembly lexicon that I could use to write progr

Seconded. I learned assembly code on a DOS 2.0 machine by disassembling tons of random bytes and making a hex->assembly lexicon that I could use to write programs in hex. Not because I was trying to be hardcore, but because I was in an information, and software, and hardware desert. My kid, on the other hand, has a 24-hour, 50 gigabit connection to any information he wants, a computer made in 2015, and his choice of nearly any IDE and any programming language he could possibly want. > Opportunity has increased _massively_ the last 20 years. The only problem is that it's increased for everyone else, too. Used to be you were a king if you had a board with a nail in it. Now everyone's packing Uzis.