I loved Lisp upon my first exposure in the late 80s in university. Then I "had" to professionally abandon Lisp leanings because I entered the game industry which required, at the time, a commitment to 8-bit assembly code. No problem. Lisp remained a hobby. Fast forward! Unexpected intersect! I love this so much and thank you for the great writeup!

There's a podcast for present day NES developers called The Assembly Line.[1] I'm sure they'd enjoy this story and talking to you.

[1] https://soundcloud.com/nesassemblyline