This part (label is 23LCVB I/P JWD 1336, 8-DIP package)

That is an Atmel AT24C512B. Two-wire Serial EEPROM, 2.5V, 512K (65,536 x 8).

See the AT24C512B datasheet page 13 for markings.

If you have ever worked on a seriously complex technical project, you will know that it's basically impossible to design something properly from the beginning.

Think about it. If cave men had just thought properly, then they should have been walking on the moon 100,000 years ago.

Manufacturing modern semiconductors is a seriously difficult business, and it involved so many engineering challenges that had to be overcome in order to make it possible. You can't overcome these challenges simply by designing something right in the first place. The only way to do it is to take baby steps. Get a new technology running. It won't be very good to start with. There will be lots of imperfections in the process, and the yield will be low. Slowly people work out how to optimise the process variables in order to make the process reliable, and get the yield closer to 100%. Then you take another baby step.

In theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice it is.

In order to progress from the integrated circuit to today's multicore CPU took innovations in:

• Chemistry: coatings, ultra pure crystal growth
• Optics: How do you focus photons which are larger than the features you are making? How do you generate a light source bright enough and at the short wavelength you need. That light source can be one of the largest consumers of power in a semiconductor fab.
• Mechanical aspects: techniques for polishing silicon wafers ultra flat. Accurately registering (positioning) the wafers for repeated exposures.
• Computing: You need a powerful computer to be able to design a powerful CPU. Catch 22.
• Construction: Massively complex and expensive fabs had to be build in order to build these things reliably and economically.

" they should have got this far in a lot shorter a time "

Really? It's been only 53 years since the first integrated circuit was patented in 1959. That's amazingly quick, considering humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, and most of this time they made no progress at all in integrated circuits.