I suspect that the 8/a and Omnibus would've seen a
"shrink" to
higher density PCB's. As it was, DEC sold 8/a/e/f's up through
the mid 80's and never really increased the density of TTL chips
on those boards. Maybe the savings from such a shrink really
weren't very big?
I doubt DEC sold enough 8s in the 80s to make it worthwhile. Board (or
more nowadays, chip) shinking only makes sense when the volume is quite
large.
William Donzelli
aw288 at
osfn.org