I remember reading an interview with a former pixel artist in the gaming industry where he briefly described his process, pixel pushing with a joystick: "clac, clac, clac, tic, clac, clac, tic, clac, clac, clac"
This is so alien..
I can't even imagine doing some pixelling without 32bits tools like curve control, smart saturation adjustments, layers, infinite RAM, and so on. That being said, I think Deluxe Paint (II? or maybe the III) was kind of a revolution for hard working artists back then.