Despite what the article says, the 68000 was microcoded too. Another difference is that the 68K was a 32b architecture, not 16b, and that required investing more transistors for the register file and datapath.
retrac•51m ago
Not for the data path; the 68000 operates on 32 bit values 16 bits at a time, both through its external 16 bit bus and internal 16 bit ALU. Most 32 bit operations take more cycles. But yes, it has a 32 bit programming model.
jecel•41m ago
Actually, the 68000 had one full (all operations) 16 bit ALU and two more simple (add/subtract, so AU might be a better name) 16 bit ALUs so in the best case it could crunch 48 bits per clock cycle. The 8086 had one full 16 bit ALU and one simple 16 bit ALU (the ancestor of todays AGUs - address generator units).
jecel•45m ago
The 68000 actually had both microcode and nanocode, so it was even further from hardwired control logic than the 8086. In terms of performance the 68000 was slightly faster than the 286 and way faster than the 8088 (I never used an 8086 machine).
tasty_freeze•1h ago
retrac•51m ago
jecel•41m ago
jecel•45m ago