I'm amazed about the 32 kHz vs 32.040 kHz difference breaking actual games (not TASbot speedruns.) Were programmers counting clock cycles back then? (Writing for, say, an Atari 2600, of course they ...

Clock speed independence was a later thing, which came from problems exactly like this. Once programmers figured out that, hey, CPUs were getting a lot faster, for generation after generation, they ...