> The only thing I can think of is that the manufacturing runs were done sequentially instead of all at once. Was that a common thing for ASICs back then? It s

> The only thing I can think of is that the manufacturing runs were done sequentially instead of all at once. Was that a common thing for ASICs back then? It still is common. It's more efficient to make a batch of 1000 widget-Xs and then a batch of 1000 widget-Ys, rather than 1 X and 1 Y and then 1 X, and so on. It saves changeover time for the machines in the process, in this case things like the wirebonders and so on. Not so much the wafer fab if the process was identical, though in those days it may have also been worth it there too. > I’m also curious why calculators were such a common thing then The magnitude of the speedup is really pretty huge. Slide rules helped but were only ~3 digit accurate; that's not always good enough. Sit down and do something like solve a simple quadratic equation with non-integral coefficients without any calculator assistance and you'll start to get an idea how bad it can be....