Comment by tomcam

Having been involved in some big projects my first instinct is that someone had to make a decision fast. IIRC the PC was designed in an 18-month skunkworks project.

I assume that someone had to meet a deadline, they were probably responsible for half a dozen other more important features, and there was a bleary-eyed team meeting where Chet asked “Any idea better than Dave’s house thing?” A bunch of people disagreed, no one had a markedly better idea than house thing, and it was memorialized with no one in the room remotely comprehending it would affect billions of PCs for the next 40 years.