The A1000/A500 reigned from 1985 to 1990 or so, more or less the same platform for 5 years, a platform I could write all programs I wanted to in pure assembler,

The A1000/A500 reigned from 1985 to 1990 or so, more or less the same platform for 5 years, a platform I could write all programs I wanted to in pure assembler, and eventually knowing every register and bits of HW in the entire system. Essentially just the right amount of complexity for individuals (kids, even) to learn without the knowledge getting obsolete before you mastered it. It was "lightning in a bottle" so to speak. I'm glad the Arduino, RPi and other small devices exist today, that don't evolve as fast as desktop OSes or mobile SDKs do, that give the chance for curious minds to learn before their knowledge gets obsoleted.