And the beautiful design hid the fact that this would have been a nightmare to make it work in software. Plug-and-play just was not a thing in that era, and it'

And the beautiful design hid the fact that this would have been a nightmare to make it work in software. Plug-and-play just was not a thing in that era, and it's barely there now. I can't see how you would make the idea of "unplug the Apple ][ box and plug in an 80286 box" work without with a mountain of software to assist.