How many transistors in the 6502 processor?

While I don't know what the "real" numbers are, I'm inclined to believe this (4000) number, at least relative to the others just based on the internal resources. What I find odd, by the way, is that this ratio, seemingly quite reasonable, doesn't show up in the IP-cores available today. While it's quite reasonable to believe the 650x core with only four internal software-accessible registers (A,X,Y, SP) would have a substantially lower gate count than a Z80, which has lots of register resources, (A,B,C,D,E,H,L,IX,IY,SP, plus a second set of the same) and it does, but nowhere near the ratio that these registers suggest. Of course there are several ways of looking at the definition of "gate" but it's odd that the ratio of gates consumed by each of these cores doesn't approach the cost based on silicon by the pound, seems to reflect this same ratio as do the comparisons of the era when the 6502 was current. What would be interesting, since it's conspicuously absent from the list quoted below, is the transistor count in the 6802 (a 6800 with internal clock generator) and 6809. One thing that I found fascinating back in '81-'82 when MOT started a big push for their two relatively new brain-children, the 68K and the 6805, was that the 6805 was, in fact, a bigger chip. They glued a bare chip to each data sheet they passed out at their sales seminars back then and the 6805, with its peripherals, timers, ram, ROM, etc, was markedly bigger. It made me wonder how they fit the chip to the lead frame I was accustomed to associating with the 28 and 40-pin packages used for them. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Battle" <frustum(a)pacbell.net> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2001 12:57 AM Subject: Re: How many transistors in the 6502 processor?