> Did they boot from a USB stick, a CD, or from a SATA hdd?

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=8313&start=23

> today's modern components and CPU's that are orders of magnitude faster
> than those on the Phase5 boards

"Orders of magnitude faster" means at least 100 times faster, which would equal a 20 GHz "G2" CPU.

> or a second 1.42GHz to 1.8GHz G4 could provide on a MorphOS3.x system

...or even a second 2.0 GHz G4.