Emulator

:This article is about emulation in computer science. See Emulation (disambiguation) for other meanings.

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A software emulator allows computer programs to run on a platform (computer architecture and/or operating system) other than the one for which they were originally written. Unlike with a simulation, an emulation does not attempt to precisely model the state of the device being emulated; it only attempts to reproduce its behavior.

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A popular use of emulators is to mimic the experience of running arcade games or console games on Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. Emulating these on modern desktop computers is usually less cumbersome than relying on the original machines. However, software licensing issues may require emulator authors to write original software that duplicates the functionality of the original computer's bootstrap ROM and BIOS, often through high-level emulation.

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In a technical sense, the Church-Turing thesis implies that any operating environment can be emulated within any other. In practice, it can be quite difficult, particularly when the exact behaviour of the system to be emulated is not documented and has to be deduced through reverse engineering. It also says nothing about timing constraints; if the emulator does not perform as quickly as the original hardware, the emulated software may run much more slowly than it would have on the original hardware.

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Computer science: Computer science (abbreviated CS or compsci) encompasses a variety of topics that relates to computation, like abstract analysis of algorithms, formal grammars, and subjects such as programming languages, program design, software, computer hardware, artificial intelligence, and numerical analysis. B...

Emulation (disambiguation): The term emulation may have the following meanings....

Computer program: A computer program or software program (usually abbreviated to "a program") is a step-by-step list of instructions written for a particular computer architecture in a particular computer programming language. A layman equivalent example would be writing a step-by-step list of instructions in English...

Emulator related Images and Photos (experimental)

a320 Pocket Retro Game Emulator

a320 Pocket Retro Game Emulator

GP2X Caanoo MAME/Console Emulator

GP2X Wiz MAME/Amiga/Console Emulator