It’s not so much that the tech just worked. Often it doesn’t work. The difference is that when it doesn’t work it’s not user-serviceable. Up until maybe 2010 or so, when things broke there was often something a user could do to fix them. But, especially with the introduction of locked-down mobile phone OSes, that’s not true anymore. Now it’s just “wait for an update”.

Some can’t. Computers weren’t commonplace until many GenXers were in their 20s, so some never learned. Those that did learn often learned the deep magic.

Silly millennial, even Boomers were using regexen in the 70s, and they were commonplace by the time GenX nerds started playing with them in the 80s and 90s. Your elders also know that regexen are fun but extremely dangerous, and should only be used in cases where they won’t make things much worse.

Write machine code? For what kind of processor?

That is one ability that doesn’t really belong. That’s much more of a Boomer thing. Not all boomers, obviously, but the ones who were computer experts were the ones who had to learn machine code. By the time even Gen X came along, assembler and C were already much more common.

That monitor was really underrated. I used it for decades for game consoles, VCRs, etc. after the C64 went obsolete.

I’m old enough to know why people used pencils for cassettes. It wasn’t coincidence. Count the number of teeth in the casette, then look at the number of facets on a standard pencil.