From what I can glean about all these devices is that one should regard them more as say Colossus during WW2, that is to say the "computers" used in these probes are more like single function machines as opposed to general purpose computers.
Each onboard instrument has a small piece of code to control its function only rather than a generalised blanket program controlling everything. This I guess would make updates easier , only having to update a single module rather than the whole program and the "CPU" if it could even be labelled as such would operate on a very reduced instruction set hard wired into the system itself and operating on each modules code as fed to it.
Interestingly these probes use Static or non-volatile memory which in simple terms means that once some data is entered into it it retains said information providing a small voltage is kept applied to it whereas dynamic or volatile memory has to be constantly refreshed or it loses that data.
Using static memory negates the need for a complex refresh circuit and so would be a space as well as an energy saver.
This is just my take on it.
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