I grew up with early 80s microcomputers. I played around with BASIC and a little asm, definitely found it fascinating but as a kid just typing in little games

I grew up with early 80s microcomputers. I played around with BASIC and a little asm, definitely found it fascinating but as a kid just typing in little games from magazines I didn't really ever understand the whole computer. Then in my 30s I found a group of retro enthusiasts that were still hacking on the little oddball computer I'd had as a kid. It became a hobby for a few years, and coming back to the platform with a couple decades of experience programming was truly a revelation. Fitting the whole machine in your head, knowing what every byte in the memory map and every cycle of the CPU are doing.. its an experience I don't think is really possible on modern hardware. Maybe with a microcontroller or arduino type device, but even these are much more complex than the old 80s microcomputers.