Graphics was somewhat more complicated back in the day. In the days before we had enough memory to hold a full screen framebuffer, there was a lot of magic going on with cathode ray tubes, video signals, dedicated hardware sprite engines, memory access clock cycles, using interrupt handling to "race the beam" and so on.
It's not like modern display panels and HDMI signals and digital protocols are simple, but you don't have to go into the details to understand how pixels and framebuffers work.
If you're trying to explain how pixels work, going back to 1980s era technology is a detour into arcane technical details that aren't really relevant any more. They're pretty cool to read about if you're into retro computer technology but they don't have much educational value or relevance to the modern day.
It's not like modern display panels and HDMI signals and digital protocols are simple, but you don't have to go into the details to understand how pixels and framebuffers work.
If you're trying to explain how pixels work, going back to 1980s era technology is a detour into arcane technical details that aren't really relevant any more. They're pretty cool to read about if you're into retro computer technology but they don't have much educational value or relevance to the modern day.