- allocate/allow 2 or more 8051s onboard.

- a grid of jumpers to expand the discrete I/Os available. dedicate some cheaper 8051s as port expanders rather than strobing with a port or multiplexer. then the cheaper 8051s could also do intermediate calculations (these cheaper 8051s are in addition to the multiple main CPUs). maybe multiple ribbon cables with jumper-sized connectors on the uC board end could bring in the I/O lines to the grid.

james