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Tbh it’s not just nostalgia (at least for me). That machine (and related machines) had such a unique combination of limitations and possibilities that 35 years on, I still find a lot of inspiration in code and optimizations that were/are being written for C64 and are directly or indirectly applicable to programming today.

8 bit CPU with 16 bit address space, a simple assembly language, most peripherals accessible by modifying bytes in memory, coupled with a desire to show off and one up each other produced an absolute treasure trove of programming tricks and techniques. Coders regularly produce(d) results that on paper were not possible on C64.