[cmrdporcupine]

Well it was a hindrance and probably the chief reason people wanted to upgrade later to 16-bits. In reality a 6502 or Z80 at 1-3mhz with supporting circuity was probably fast enough for most people's needs, but the memory sizes and lack of 80 column displays gave those machines limited usefulness for the things people needed computers for at the time: word processing, home spreadsheets, etc.