I had a friend who worked for Maxis for a while 'back in the day'. He built the abstraction layers and cross-platform code engine that allowed SimTown to have near-simultaneous Mac/PC release, rather than having to start each port from scratch. I suppose by that point fitting the bytecode into such a small footprint wasn't as important, and OOP methodologies were getting a stronger foothold in the development communities outside the halls of academia. Good to hear that the original source of the first game has continued to evolve.