Original meaning of "microcontroller", that is "microprogrammed controller", is circuit similar to what is described in article. There were even chips containin

Original meaning of "microcontroller", that is "microprogrammed controller", is circuit similar to what is described in article. There were even chips containing bunch of PROM and latch designed for this kind of uses and original PICs are only more involved implementation of same idea. Circuitry in microcoded CISC CPUs that drives all the control signals according to microcode is also essentially the same thing.