Hehehe...
My assembly code for C64 book is still on my shelf. As to the games, there were plenty of them, you're right. I can't tell you how many hours I wasted on Impossible mission. I never once beat it though. Not once. Ever. I think that's what I hated about it. I mean, I felt I was pretty good at it. I could run around, kill all the stuff, find all the pieces, but I could never quite figure out what I was supposed to do with them. I mean, do they make a picture? Do they make a solid rectangle?! Grrr... Ticks me off to just think about it. Jumpman was way cool. As was Beachhead. Ah, the Way of the Exploding Fist. Mail Order Monsters. Racing Destruction Set. Marble Madness.
There were in fact LOTS of cool games. In fact, I find that the games back then were better. The GAME part. Obviously, the eye candy wasn't there, so they had to make up for it with good solid gameplay. I mean, Loderunner wasn't pretty, but it sure was a hell of a lotta fun!

Hehe, remember on Sim City when you had that red piece of paper with all the codes on it to start the game? It was so deep red that it couldn't be potocopied. It was about that time when I moved on to the ol' Tandy.