This is similar to what I think they do with calculators. The chip does all the functions. The keys do what the consumer paid for.
40 years ago, a coworker found he could do square roots even though there was no such key on his calculator by pressing three keys simultaneously. I’ve always wondered what he was doing when he found this.
:) I bet they were counting on nobody finding out that logic combination of the HW translating to something that would activate a SW function.
There’s many variants of the same approach. Intel Corp would sell 486DX chips as cheaper 486SX chips if the math co-processor didn’t function correctly, vs toss them as they were doing prior.