This made me laugh. It wasn't the Dark Ages. They thought of code as code. I'm in my 50's, and I took my first programming class in high school in 1980. When I entered college a few years later, most of my engineering classmates had prior experience programming. It really wasn't considered anything mysterious or magical.

Late ‘90s, and it was just as hard as today. Applied to dozens of companies as a Senior in undergrad. Similar 1 on 20 response rate as today. I remember the interview—typical “solve this trivial thing in a language of your choice.” Most college kids picked java. I picked x86 assembly and nailed it. In think that impressed someone.

Heh. The main shareware program I sold for a number of years was written in x86 assembler. The horror. The horror. :-) I was just reminded this afternoon when someone sent me a message on company chat asking if I was the person who wrote said program.

When I code these days, I'll take Python.

Well, what was the program you wrote? We wont judge you

Directory Freedom. DOS directory utility.

I'd be impressed by that. Like who does that? Especially if it was these days. That'd be inspirational.

That's awesome. Did you submit it in HEX? :)