[rasz]

65816 at 7MHz would be faster than 68000 despite 8 bit databus. one modified for full 16bit would fly circles around motorola. Bill Mensch would have no problem extending and growing this chip as long as Commodore was buying. 65816 already has reserved mnemonic for expanding instruction set further.

[rbanffy]

The 65816 (much like the 6502 before it) punched way above its weight, but that'd not be enough in the long term.

There was a point neither IBM nor Motorola cared about making PPC CPUs for Apple - that's why Apple moved to Intel. Moving to a bespoke, Apple-only CPU, would only precipitate things by making a series of CPUs just for Apple. Not sure WDC would be able to rival the investment of the big CPU shops of the time.

If, instead of tapping WDC they went to MOS with a roadmap that could accommodate both Apple and Commodore, maybe history would be different. In either case, these are parallel universes I'd love to observe.