Well, it is an easy observable fact that before the PDP-11/70, all PDP-11 models had
their memory on the Unibus. So it was not only "an ability at the lower end", b
That’s not quite true. While the 18 bit addressed machines all had their memory directly
accessible from the Unibus, the 45/50/55 had a separate bus for the (then new)
semiconductor (bipolar or MOS) memory.