You can do any combinational and sequential logic you want without having to use a forest of discrete 74xx ICs. If you've ever scratched an itch with redstone

You can do any combinational and sequential logic you want without having to use a forest of discrete 74xx ICs. If you've ever scratched an itch with redstone in minecraft or taken a digital logic course you might find it quite rewarding to interpret a problem into a binary problem then implement an optimal solution with k maps and implication tables. Practically speaking they're useful for hobbyists who want to push beyond the capabilities of the I/O and crunching capabilities of microcontrollers. In many cases the 32-bit micros around today are good enough, but I think it's satisfying to work with bare logic elements.