At 09:14 AM 10/20/98 -0400, Allison J Parent wrote:
>
>Emulators have their place where hardware is scarce or extinct.
>What you can't do with an emulator is make the disk drive buzz out a
>tune or hack the DMA logic as a simple blitter. Hardware has aspects,
>some very tactile, that emulators can't.
The Dead Media Project, <
http://www.islandnet.com/~ianc/dm/dm.html>,
headed by author Bruce Sterling, maintains an interesting mailing list
and archive about obsolete media. One sub-project is the Dead Sounds
tape, a collection of the sounds of dead media. I submitted the
sound of a PET data tape, for example.
There's every reason to assume that emulators will continue to
evolve to include the recreation of sounds and 3D imagery. I think
they'll become more faithful in their reproduction of hardware
characteristics, too, allowing more soft configuration of
the devices connected to the system.
The number of viable antique systems will drop over time, and the
number of people wanting to experience them will increase. Emulators
fill a great need, and they don't fill space.
- John
Received on Tue Oct 20 1998 - 09:35:27 BST