Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's arguably a proto- RISC architechture (eg ADD has to be coded explicitly from CLC and one or more ADC, register file is memory locations 00-FF, etc), but it has little to do with ARM.
My understanding was that much of the design of ARM was literally based on 6502: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#Design_concep... Edit: Granted, Sophie Wilson, one of the designers of ARM, is on record stating that 6502 didn't inspire anything in particular , beside being one of the few inputs to her pool of ideas (16032 and Berkeley RISC being the others): https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/admired_d…
Huh, hadn't seen that previously. I'd still call that a influence on ARM rather than a proto-ARM, but fair enough.