> so now we may resort to paid novel take homes e.g. write a simple device driver from scratch for the Intel E1000 in C99 over the weekend. Something you'd likely have been exposed to in CS102 type stuff.

I am really curious to know what school has a cs 102 level class that teaches you writing a device driver?

I could perhaps see this as part of Operating systems class, where you just learned about how kernels works using a minimal OS (like xv6).

but that example you gave based on the expectation you mentioned are very extreme. This is why its hard to find talnet to hire.