I believe that boiled down to a 'yes'.
One follow-up question: What difference would several hundred bytes vs. zero bytes of pre-existing algorithms in the machine make in its ability to bootstrap per the original question?
False premise. All existence, including the "machine", has a non-zero description length -- if it exists, it contains algorithms. We are not arguing whether or not there were pre-existing bytes (there were pre-existing bytes by definition), only the number of bytes required to do the bootstrap. As is well established in theory, you need very few bytes worth of machine to get the job done.
The machine and the algorithm and the data are not distinct things in the theoretical abstract. Humans create the distinction as an engineering convenience based on how we fabricate computers in practice.