Exercise 1: Die Size, Transistor Count, and Yield — Possible Solution
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THE RELATIONSHIP, IN MY OWN WORDS
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Per the chapter's own explanation, a chip's manufacturing cost in 1975
was driven heavily by two linked factors:

1. Die size -- how much physical silicon area a single chip design
   takes up. A smaller die means more individual chips can be cut
   from the same fixed-size silicon wafer, so each individual chip
   effectively costs less to produce.

2. Yield -- what fraction of the chips cut from a wafer actually work
   correctly. Manufacturing defects occur somewhat randomly across a
   wafer; a smaller die has a smaller "target area" for a random
   defect to land inside, so a bigger percentage of the chips
   produced come out defect-free and usable.

Both effects move in the SAME direction as soon as a chip's die gets
smaller: more usable chips per wafer, produced more cheaply. And die
size is driven directly by transistor count -- more transistors need
more physical silicon area to implement, so fewer transistors is the
most direct lever available for shrinking the die.

WHY THIS MADE TRANSISTOR COUNT THE CENTRAL CONSTRAINT
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This is the key point: transistor count didn't become important
because the 6502 team simply preferred simple designs in the
abstract. It became important because it was the one variable that
directly and measurably controlled BOTH halves of the chip's real
manufacturing cost (cheaper per-chip cost from a smaller die, AND
higher yield from a smaller die) at the same time. Once $25 was the
actual target price, transistor count wasn't just "nice to keep low"
-- it was the specific, quantifiable number that translated a
business goal (a cheap chip) into an engineering rule every part of
the design had to be checked against.

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
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It explains both halves of the die-size relationship (cost per chip,
AND yield) rather than just one, and explicitly distinguishes "a
general preference for simplicity" from "a specific, measurable lever
tied directly to the $25 target," which is the actual distinction the
chapter draws.