I started my coding life in Assembler on a DEC10 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-10 back in the late 70's.
While it taught me an enormous amount about how computers work (as you are not abstracted from the low level architecture like with a high level language) it was incredibly inefficient time and productivity wise compared to today's languages and frameworks.
Also built my own computer a few years later from a kit (based on a Z80 chip en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zilog_Z80) and also programming this in Z80 assembler.
Understanding computers is like the proverbial "onion". You can keep peeling away layers and realise that there is another level that you knew absolutely nothing about. This has kept me passionate about IT and Software development.
imho there has never been a better time to be a Developer than right now which is why I've come back to learn the latest techniques and skills :-)