The Mac classic was about as pure as you could get from an architectural point of view.
A 1 bit framebuffer and a CPU gets you most of what the machine can do.
Most of the quirk abuse of 8-bit machines came from features that were provided with limitations. Sprites, but only 8 of them, colours but only 2 in any 8x8 cell. Multicolour but only in one of two palettes and you'll hate both.
Almost all of the hacks were to get around the limitations of the features.
I don't know if the decision apple made was specifically with future machines in mind. It certainly would have been a headache to make new machines 5 generations down the track if the first one had player missile graphics.
They absolutely knew that they were making a platform that needed as much hardware independence as possible. The 512k was already in development before they even finished the original, and they had the experience of the Apple II, which for all of Wozniak’s legendary work, was a dead-end because it relied too heavily on hardware hacks.
A 1 bit framebuffer and a CPU gets you most of what the machine can do.
Most of the quirk abuse of 8-bit machines came from features that were provided with limitations. Sprites, but only 8 of them, colours but only 2 in any 8x8 cell. Multicolour but only in one of two palettes and you'll hate both.
Almost all of the hacks were to get around the limitations of the features.
I don't know if the decision apple made was specifically with future machines in mind. It certainly would have been a headache to make new machines 5 generations down the track if the first one had player missile graphics.