I am sure I have memories of how hard it was to support a range of hardware when I had to write specifically for each piece. When I had to write separately for a Soundblaster card and an Adlib and a Disney SoundSource and a Roland and a Gravis.

And that was just the sound cards. Writing for different hardware became so much easier when OpenGl and DirectX came into being. Suddenly I just had to write to these APIs.

I think I'm disagreeing with you. Supporting multiple hardware configuration way back when was so much harder than doing it today.