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by segfaultbuserr 2504 days ago
> I examined the ARM-1's barrel shifter on the die. It takes roughly 10% of the chip so it's a fairly hefty investment.

> Functions like multiply and divide are more useful than barrel shifting, and those were missing too.

My thought was that the lack of multiplier/divider can be somewhat compensated by adding a cheaper 8-bit barrel shifter instead. So according to your analysis, apparently even that didn't make economic sense for a 8-bit chip.

Thanks a lot for giving an authoritative assessment, Ken!