How did Anyone afford Berkshire Hathaway.A Before the advent of fractional shares? I just don’t understand, 700,000 for one share?

That being said, even in my very limited investing career, I have seen it nearly go up by 250k over last four years or so…I’m just curious why they never did any splits and the reasoning behind it… was stock splits something that was relatively more uncommon in the past? because it seems like they are all the rage nowadays