Is it possible to make modern replica Macintosh Processor Upgrade/Power Mac Processor Upgrade cards

[Angelgreat]

In the 90's, it was possible to upgrade a 68k Mac to PowerPC with the Macintosh Processor Upgrade Card and or the Power Mac Processor Upgrade, depending on the model. However, those have a 601e cpu and can only go up to 9.1 with some patches to Mac OS (68k Macs can only go up to 8.1).

I was thinking if it was possible to make modern replica Macintosh Processor Upgrade Cards and Power Mac Processor Upgrade Cards , but make them better by having them equipped with a G3/G4 cpu, mmu , FireWire, and extra ram. It would be cool to see a Mystic Color Classic or a Quadra 700 run 10.4 Tiger.

 

[Cory5412]

It is probably possible to make a replica or something along a similar vein of the existing PowerMac CPU upgrade cards. Most of them will give you, roughly speaking, 6100/60 or 6200/75 performance or a little less. You're taking all the real limitations of the 6200, architecturally (the 6200 is just a 630 with a pre-integrated PPC upgrade) and saddling it with an even slower 601. Often as low as 40-50MHz.

All the rest of that is almost certainly not possible. It probably wasn't even considered "possible" in the late 2000s while upgrades for pre-G3 Macs were still a relevant thing.

By that point you're just brainslugging it enough that
1) emulators are faster and more reliable
2) newer real Macs are faster and more reliable

Mac OS 9 is already on the verge of unusable on regular 6100/60 and 6200/75, I can't imagine it on a 50MHz 601, but I bet it would be bad. (I suppose a way to simulate this might be to run QEMU-PPC on slower computers than what I've already tried/used.)

Mac OS X is likely right out on any PPC-upgraded 68k Mac. It has only ever run on PCI PowerMacs.