> It is probably easier these days when you have a phone to fall back on

Most definitely. The old lessons were hard learned, and they stayed with you. Going through everything, trying all the combinations, and reading obscure materials for any hints.

I don't want to glorify the old hard way of spending perhaps days on problems that ended up being trivial, but it's obviously different now when one can get all the answers and helpful scripts directly from LLMs. Much less is retained.