I learned with the 68000 which not only was still a bit relevant and an "industry" chip, it was also simple enough to understand in a few hours assembly courses

I learned with the 68000 which not only was still a bit relevant and an "industry" chip, it was also simple enough to understand in a few hours assembly courses. The CPU arch course was with a different teacher and on a made up CPU though. It wasn't even a full CPU we were just learning modules and what they do. Kind of a more advanced (and less palatable) version of the book "but how do it know" (which btw is a great read for the neophyte like me).