Something similar happened to me when I ran an Apple II emulator for the first time. Even though it had been years since I last used a real Apple //c, seeing the prompt in the correct font with the cursor blink at the exact right tempo rewired my brain on the fly and I was typing commands and writing BASIC programs almost immediately.

I still fire it up occasionally to play through my old games and look at my old programs. Nostalgia is a powerful thing.