It depends on the system though; C64 had a very limited basic so without asm you could not do very much. Other systems, like the MSX, had pretty advanced basic

It depends on the system though; C64 had a very limited basic so without asm you could not do very much. Other systems, like the MSX, had pretty advanced basic and many of the programs you would type in were mostly or only BASIC. However, because I was young and still had memory in my brain, by typing in those poke data parts, patterns stuck in my memory. When I bought my first asm book, I finally understood what those patterns of opcodes meant. I never programmed in assembly instructions on the z80; I always used direct opcodes, still do. It is faster for me.