When I started coding, we had to code in 0s and 1s, and sometimes we didn't even have the 1s.
Yeah, when we were short of 1s, we'd take some 0s, bend them back and forth from top to bottom until they broke, then flatten the halves out. It was slow, deliberate work.
It was a great day when Microsoft was finally able to figure out how to mass-produce 1s.