There are moments in every project where you wonder if what you're doing is going to work at all. I think this is especially true when you have several layers of uncertainty. 

I got the programmer and compiler to work, so I knew I could program the CH32V003 to do something simple (blink an LED). I didn't know the following with certainty: 

• If I had the OLED display hooked up correctly
• If I had the command startup sequence correct
• If I had transposed the custom commands from an example into Arduino's Wire library correctly.
• I was pretty sure the OLED display I had worked.

After messing around with a handful of various items, the display lit up full of random data... I assume it was whatever was hanging out in memory, or something like that. I also got, at one point a pattern... of randomness. 

But after a few more pokes and attempts, I ended up with this: 

It doesn't look like much, but those white and black bars were intentional - and that makes all the difference in the world. It's a good feeling when you see the fruit of your labor. You understand Doc Brown's surprised assertion when he sees the Flux Capacitor "It works! I finally invent something that works!"

Onto actually drawing something on the screen (and keeping it all in 16K)