The Turing machines are ingenious given the then state of the art.
I remember as a young engineering student struggling to learn electronics. Of all things, it was a fluid power class where we made a functional color sign board completely out of pneumatic components that everything clicked.
My first visit to a central telephone office using Strowger switching technology was also a huge watershed for me conceptually. Once I had a physical model I could reference in my mind, I was able to easily understand how call routing worked.
I began with PDP-11’s we bootstrapped by hand and now I have a multi-core computer w/ 256gb in my pocket.
—”I began with PDP-11”
A guy I knew had a PDP-11 in his basement, yes he was a bit computer nutty.
But he got it for free!
I think he could echo “HELLO WORLD” to the terminal?