[Innittech]

Yes that was how it worked due to the limitations of the C64 but also the old BASIC that they were using. If you actually used your C64 as a "power user" you'd probably have ponied up for JiffyDOS which in addition to making the disks like 10x faster, had some QoL features like being able to list the disk contents without blowing away the low line numbers in BASIC. It was also extremely easy and common to make your own wedge (a new BASIC command). If you weren't going to use something like the tape drive for instance, you could even have it (or parts thereof) live in the memory where the tape would normally be. JiffyDOS does this, you can't use the tape drive with it at all.