Back in the late 80's, when I was in University, we had second year course where we had to do x86 assembly on PC XT or AT clones. Assignment #1 was messing with keyboard interrupts...easy peasy. Assignment #2? Write a video game...basically we had to do the "snake game" with a never ending line you could steer as it grew. Anyhow, I have to admit pretty much the whole class figured it out...assembly was not nearly as insane as we thought. By the end of that course, I was almost as comfy writing x86 assembly as Pascal. Fun times.
