Another thing was not having the perspective of what was possible or not, no such thing of "you have to use X to do Y".
My first thought back then with my C64 and BASIC: "I'll make it so when someone types LIST they won't be able to see the code, by writing more BASIC code that prevents it".
I do miss the 64 (and the Amiga which followed). The variety of machines back then was really refreshing compared to now.