Andreas_Wolf wrote:
> if the previous generations were, why change for the '060?

I don't know, but I read that after the massively microcoded 68000, the following m68k generations used less and less microcode, so that the 68040 had relatively little microcode and the 68060 none at all. Maybe it was for performance reasons?

> the '060's design really derives from the '060 (really a kind of super scalar
> version of the '40).

There are significant opcode differences between the two. And as you said, it's a black box, so ISA design of the 060 may be derived from the 040's, but this isn't necessarily true for the microarchitectural design.

> Apparently he has not been paying attention to your reports on the latest 64 bit ARM cpus.

I don't remember I said anything about performance. But there you go:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8357/exploring-the-low-end-and-micro-server-platforms/18
http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/10/26/applied-micro-x-gene-64-bit-arm-vs-intel-xeon-64-bit-x86-performance-and-power-usage/