Indeed, that's what I was expecting too. The 80386 is largely microcode-driven so I thought someone had managed to condense the datapath and sequencer enough to make it implementable with discrete components.
6502: 3500 transistors. 80386: 275000 transistors. It would have been a big board ;)
That's only 520x520 transistors. Using sot23 it would be maybe 2x2m.
520x520x1 is 130x130x16. 2x2m is a bit optimistic, but a wardrobe-sized cabinet should be possible.
Not what I expected, but that brought back memories. The LM380 (the 386's cousin) was the first analog chip I ever used, somewhere around 1976. I built a small headphone amp with the chip and a handful of discrete components on a piece of Vero board. I think the circuit came from the chip's implementation notes in the old RS Catalog.
Aww man. Was hoping we could rebuild Strong Bad's old computer.
Those are fun little chips if you need a small audio power amp. Had the same thought when I pulled up the article.