I can't even fathom that today.
I love some of the geek-fights over low-level vs. high-level languages:
"Well, Sonny... Back in MY day we had to code in BINARY. None of this namby-pamby HEX fluff, no sir! If you can't make your machine do what it should with a bank of toggle switches, you're no programmer!"
I can do the “Well, Sonny...” thing but I actually like working in the high level languages. Sure, I think my previous low-level work gave me some valuable experience, but it’s not something I’d want to do day-to-day anymore. They call it the Stone Age for a reason: we have better tools now. However, stone is often still useful.