Poets knew from long ago that using pentameter and constraints fosters creativity. Here we see the same principle applied in computing.
By limiting its resources, future developers will have to be clever to find new ways to create amazing things that early on we thought we could never do. Memory is cheap, so I could easily spend the same amount of money on a single chip that could have given me the chance to fill the memory space with RAM. But instead, I am choosing to use many chips with much lower capacity. It’s more limiting, but that’s the point."
https://c256foenix.com/product/c256-foenix-rev-c-bare-board-...
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52299/nuns-fret-not-a...
Design depends largely on constraints.
Q: What constraints?
The sum of all constraints. Here is one of the few effective keys to the Design problem: the ability of the Designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible; his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints. Constraints of price, of size, of strength, of balance, of surface, of time, and so forth. Each problem has its own peculiar list.
- Charles Eames
It was so hard to do anything.
For instance, it did not have an add instruction.
You had to clear carry, then add with carry.
That said, I can see how having a microprocessor was amazingly awesome to a hardware designer like woz who could think fluidly at the transistor level.