Corporate mangement doesn't care as long as it sort of runs and they can sell it.

Just think about all the hoops you have to jump through on a modern PC to scribble on the screen, to change the value of one pixel. Often, it will take you through multiple SDKs, multiple API frameworks, sometimes using infrastructures like COM. Nothing too onerous - if you're a professional programmer, but to a kid? Forget it.

On a Commodore 64, it was as simple as POKE to this memory register. You could poke different values and it would immediately show up on your screen. Those days are gone, except for one place, and that's the Arduino. And that's where I'd start any kid interested in computers.