[fstrthnscnd]

> 29000 transistors? But it's the same as an ARM2 which apparently was full 32bit and had an integer multiplier.

It's a very good point. I think it's worth to ask a few questions in return.

How many years separated the two designs?

Does ARM2 support an equivalent ISA, in terms of features (not encoding)?

For instance, the 8086 has support for BCD integers, specialized instructions for loops, the ability to use its registers as 16 bits or 8bits (doubling the register count in the later case).

[nereye]

Conversely, ARM2 had, for example, a barrel shifter, immediate constants, every instruction being conditional, etc., all of which are absent from 8086.

[fstrthnscnd]

My point exactly. They have different ISA, and as such cannot be compared on the transistor count alone.

They each correspond to a different era, with different needs, as BCD clearly tells.

If today's HW engineers had a chance to implement a small cpu core with the same tr count, would they come up with the same ISA as the ARM1 or 8086? Would they choose to implement integer division (DIV and IDIV in x86), or not and leave it to software (ARM)? Would they pick CISC, RISC, VLIW, or something else?