> That area of the code also explicitly had some protections provided by the language removed for the sake of efficiency
As far as I know the efficiency wasn't the issue, just that the "model" was, as I've said, brittle. The overflow was to be handled with what we'd today call "an exception handler" and the selected solution was, instead of (reasonably) writing "keep the maximum value as the result" handler, to leave the processor effectively executing random code in the case the overflow occurs. And the "exception" occured. It's not that the overflow detection was turned off to save the cycles, or that some default handling was provided. It was that it was handled with "whatever" (execute random instructions)! by intentionally omitting the handlers.
As far as I know the efficiency wasn't the issue, just that the "model" was, as I've said, brittle. The overflow was to be handled with what we'd today call "an exception handler" and the selected solution was, instead of (reasonably) writing "keep the maximum value as the result" handler, to leave the processor effectively executing random code in the case the overflow occurs. And the "exception" occured. It's not that the overflow detection was turned off to save the cycles, or that some default handling was provided. It was that it was handled with "whatever" (execute random instructions)! by intentionally omitting the handlers.