It's possible for a hypothetical transition from x86 to a new architecture to be accompanied with an OS change. Had Pink/Taligent been completed as originally

It's possible for a hypothetical transition from x86 to a new architecture to be accompanied with an OS change. Had Pink/Taligent been completed as originally planned, then the transition from the 68k to the PowerPC would have been accompanied by a transition from System 7 to Pink/Taligent. Part of the reason that IBM got involved with the development of Taligent was the AIM (Apple/IBM/Motorola) alliance, which was formed in 1991 and led to the PowerPC transition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent Unfortunately the development efforts of Taligent failed, which led to the equally-doomed Copland project, which led to Apple's purchase of NeXT. This saga lasted around a decade.