> You didn't have to draw a pixel at a time.

I always have to laugh when that one comes up. But yeah, many Japanese dot/pixel art graphics packages (e. g. Multi Paint System) have brushes for those characteristic dithering patterns. Fast work! And I don't think they did pixel-blending (as on Western home computers) either; the art was done on machines with computer monitors for customers with pretty much the same systems (e. g. PC-98). Manual corrections, analog/digital "transkriptions" (from raster paper for example), etc. are another story...