I bet you were one of us who used Peeks, Pokes and Calls -- for for our own hex assembler code subroutiness -- in contests to see who could write the fanciest program in a single 80-character line of BASIC code.. '-)
And, I definitely remember Woz's fragmented memory! My annual test of my growing self-taught skills was an ever-imoroving hires snow scene graphic with falling snow. For a flake to reach the ground, it had to traverse three separate areas of graphic memory (which was a good tutorial on the use of offsets in hex...). I developed an asymmetrical 3-pixel "shape" for my snowflakes, and applied random rotation to create a realistic "flutter" as they fell...
Actually, those were great days. I truly miss having machines over which the user had absolute -- down to the bit level -- control...
Yes, those were the fun days. I was a member of the San Francisco Apple Core computer club. We used to meet in a side room of a savings and loan building on Geary Boulevard. Members would talk and display their efforts on their little Apple II's. I wrote a Keno game that fit in 2K of space. A Computerland store owner liked it so much he put it on display in his store. This was back in early 1978. Later, the club moved to bigger quarters at Fort Mason near Chrissy Field. One of my fond memories was when I mentioned I wanted to build a printer interface via the game port. Andy Hertzfeld (co-inventor of the Mac) showed me how to build an interface for under $2, sketched a schematic on the inside of a matchbook cover.
You're right about having absolute control over these machines. I applied what I learned controlling the Apple disk drives when they came out, to larger IBM mainframes. I could manipulate any bit sector, on any track and side. I applied this to controlling IBM 3180 DASD hard drives, writing machine code for custom programs for one of my employers. The Apple II was a great practice machine for learning concepts.
I still own and use my 1977 Apple II (Revision 0 early machine). No cassette drive necessary, as I have a CompactFlash card in it. I downloaded thousands of Apple programs and games (all available free online) into CompactFlash cards. Early on, I had programmed my own autostart ROMs so I don't need to load DOS, it's instant on. In the mid-1980s I had moved the guts into a larger custom case I built and used at my job (still very useful side by side with and interfaced to an IBM PC). Later, because of the collectibility factor, I restored it all to the original case. Most of my other PCs were trashed long ago. I'll never part with the Apple II!