[spacedcowboy]

I'm genuinely puzzled by how you know enough about a system to even understand there is a basic assembly language, but still consider how "switching on" is 'pure magic'.

Doesn't the one explain the other ? It may be turtles all the way down, but at some point there's a fundamental turtle - be it LEA or CMP ?

[idiotsecant]

There is an absolute gulf between knowing what assembly is and a functional computer

[spacedcowboy]

Fair. I've just never come across someone who knows what assembly-language is, and who doesn't understand how a computer works. The journey of discovery is usually from the top-down, not the bottom-up.