This in is a tradition of earlier simulated ("cardboard") computers such as the 1965 "Little Man Computer" or the 1968 CARDIAC. Like Ordinapoche, they were basically aids to help a person step through a machine language program, with the person performing the low-level actions themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_man_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARDboard_Illustrative_Aid_to_...