This chip:
8 MHz, 8 bit processing
1K x 14 bits EPROM.
48 bytes SRAM.
6 general purpose I/O pins (GPIO), PB[5:0], with independent direction control.
In comparison to the usual suspects like Apollo guidance computer or TI-83, it has a higher clock speed but shorter word length and extremely limited ram and memory. Precisely due to the cost engineering - this is meant to run simple, limited size programs.
What's the reasoning here? You think that life would not have survived ice ages if ice didn't float? Life would probably have adapted even if the oceans froze bottom-up with deep sea "snow" no? It could even have led to a more consistent global temperature as the albedo of earth didn't change through colder periods.