At 8 MHz, a 68k can execute at most 2M instructions per second. So the answer is going to be yes, if this manages to execute one 68k instruction per ~200 cycles.
I think executing an instruction is going to be closer to 20-50 cycles than 200, so it should be much faster than a real 68k CPU.
I think performance is likely to be in the ballpark of a 68040 @20 MHz, but that's just a guess. This would leave 20 cycles for each emulated instruction. With JIT you could reach 200 MHz+ comparable speeds.
Looking at the M5Stack Tab5 IoT Development Kit [1] based on the ESP32-P4 - it's a really nice piece of kit.
[1] https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5stack-tab5-iot-developme...
Yeah, the first thing I thought of when seeing this was "how long till this tablet thingy will be out of stock everywhere?".
How performant is this - are we able to achieve similar speeds as an actual 68k Mac on embedded hardware?
At 8 MHz, a 68k can execute at most 2M instructions per second. So the answer is going to be yes, if this manages to execute one 68k instruction per ~200 cycles.
I think executing an instruction is going to be closer to 20-50 cycles than 200, so it should be much faster than a real 68k CPU.
I think performance is likely to be in the ballpark of a 68040 @20 MHz, but that's just a guess. This would leave 20 cycles for each emulated instruction. With JIT you could reach 200 MHz+ comparable speeds.
Everything is coming from PSRAM including frame buffer (at 15 fps) so performance is going to be abysmal.
1 reply →
The P4 is pretty high spec with a 400MHz dual-core RISC-V
VMac would be lighter.