1st Gen You had to save the game before switching boxes.

In the first two(?) generations, the Pokemon Storage System was extremely different. If you had a box that was full, you couldn't catch Pokemon until you switched boxes. When switching boxes, you have to save the game.

This was not changed until generation III, when the system was overhauled.

That being said, what did you think of this? I feel it's rather primitive, tbh.

It is primitive, but so was the technology for those games

I remember exploiting it to clone stuff in Gen 2, back in the day

It was useful for cloning your pokemon, wasn't it?

I have a super old Blue cartridge, it was annoying as **** in my personal opinion. I am unaware of the cloning trick though. Hmm.

Switching boxes was annoying when completing the dex, but otherwise I didn't really care about it.

I honestly hold a grudge against this mechanic. I was catching a whole bunch of Pokémon in the Safari zone when a Chansey appeared. And BOOM! box full!