For a "first dive" into a programming paradigm, I could see the appeal of something more "PC" shaped than "MCU shaped", just because it offers recognizable, eas

For a "first dive" into a programming paradigm, I could see the appeal of something more "PC" shaped than "MCU shaped", just because it offers recognizable, easy ways to deal with primitive debugging. If you have a memory-mapped frame buffer, you can write a single byte to it if you need a status checkpoint or tracking a variable. If you have a keyboard, you can probably read its buffer or use it for triggers. Maybe modern debugging environments and tools make it easier, but I tend to think of my university assembly language class which featured original Intel SDK-86 boards with LEDs and hex keypads to interact with.