This exactly. In the 80s, it was common practice to write in macro assembler, which would then be translated to the target ISA. Microsoft wrote BASIC and other

This exactly. In the 80s, it was common practice to write in macro assembler, which would then be translated to the target ISA. Microsoft wrote BASIC and others significant software in such a way. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/microsoft-open-sources-gw-basic/comment-page-3/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/microsoft-open-so... Also compilers are hungry, wasteful, complex piece of codes fairly unsuited for 8 bits and 16 bits machines. DOS games started being written in C only when the 386 got commonplace. Heck, even on 32 bits machines of the times (VAX), most things were written in pure assembly. That includes VMS.