Comment by harpiaharpyja

Probably more than you might think.

As a teen I used to play around with Core Wars, and my high school taught 8086 assembly. I think I got a decent grasp of it, enough to implement quicksort in 8086 while sitting through a very boring class, and test it in the simulator later.

I mean, probably few people ever need to use it for something serious, but that doesn't mean they don't understand it.