It depends. The general shortage implied a relatively high average level of knowledge. I grew up in Eastern Germany. At the time I started my studies, the coun

It depends. The general shortage implied a relatively high average level of knowledge. I grew up in Eastern Germany. At the time I started my studies, the country routinely created clones of the early 8086 PC. As a common user, you got a manual, describing things down to machine language. 'opcode hunting' (finding the assembly instructions from previously unknown opcodes) was kind of a competition among us aspiring physicists and mathematicians.