Agreed. And that "hairball" (great term BTW, I love it) involved custom silicon that delivered expensive capabilities. Revising that cost too much.
The PC was kind of simple in this way. So were some of the systems. I look at the Apple, which was very PC like, and the Atari ST, and when compared to systems offering custom silicon, it seemed like a no brainer choice. But, software ports were easier, CPU speeds could be increased easily, and the lack of custom silicon drove some longer term usability.
Today, we may be moving back toward another custom silicon era. Expensive capabilities put into hardware will be compelling, but may also be something of a dead end. Maybe the scale and speed of what we have today will marginalize how this could work too.
The PC was kind of simple in this way. So were some of the systems. I look at the Apple, which was very PC like, and the Atari ST, and when compared to systems offering custom silicon, it seemed like a no brainer choice. But, software ports were easier, CPU speeds could be increased easily, and the lack of custom silicon drove some longer term usability.
Today, we may be moving back toward another custom silicon era. Expensive capabilities put into hardware will be compelling, but may also be something of a dead end. Maybe the scale and speed of what we have today will marginalize how this could work too.
Interesting times ahead, as they were back then.