In the late 70s to early 80s that wasn't an obviously wrong idea, especially because in the posts above, as I understand it, when they say hardware it mostly me

In the late 70s to early 80s that wasn't an obviously wrong idea, especially because in the posts above, as I understand it, when they say hardware it mostly means microcode, which is more software than hardware. At that moment many architectures like the iAPX432, Lisp machines, Xerox machines, the VAX, etc. were microcoded.