Try machine language without an assembler. Welcome to hell.
I can't even fathom that today.
I love some of the geek-fights over low-level vs. high-level languages:
"Well, Sonny... Back in MY day we had to code in BINARY. None of this namby-pamby HEX fluff, no sir! If you can't make your machine do what it should with a bank of toggle switches, you're no programmer!"