Late Generation X and early Millenials oftentimes had to type of basic code of a magazine, if we wanted to play a game. :) Whole different level of insight. Tbf, we were a minority.
Gen X was the generation who grew up with illustrated children’s books teaching assembly language programming. There was a window of maybe 10 years when it was not unreasonable for a bright kid to teach themselves the machine language of their home computer, as well as its entire memory map and how to control its video/audio circuitry by writing bytes to specific numbered addresses. Then Wintel PCs became the standard and that world disappeared.
Late Generation X and early Millenials oftentimes had to type of basic code of a magazine, if we wanted to play a game. :) Whole different level of insight. Tbf, we were a minority.
Looked like this (this is a short demo, some games where dozens of pages long): https://atariprojects.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/MadMagProgram1-1024x668.jpg
Gen X was the generation who grew up with illustrated children’s books teaching assembly language programming. There was a window of maybe 10 years when it was not unreasonable for a bright kid to teach themselves the machine language of their home computer, as well as its entire memory map and how to control its video/audio circuitry by writing bytes to specific numbered addresses. Then Wintel PCs became the standard and that world disappeared.
I came after that generation, but I did learn how to code in basic on the C64 in my pre-teen years.
If you feel you missed out on learning 6502 assembly language, it’s easier than ever to catch up.