> It's also more compact than having to directly control all of the connections inside of a CPU manually. I expect this compactness -- or more specifically tra

> It's also more compact than having to directly control all of the connections inside of a CPU manually. I expect this compactness -- or more specifically transistor count -- was a big driver of the design. Ken discusses the "hybrid" microcode of the 8086: Both more microcode or less microcode would probably have required more transistors than the final design incorporated.