Classic Computers vs. Classic Computing

From: Eric J. Korpela <korpela_at_ssl.berkeley.edu>
Date: Fri Sep 14 10:37:07 2001

> I don't like emulators one bit. I run them every so often, but I really prefer
> the original whenever I can. I don't really trust emulations, but that's not
> the main point.
>
There is a point to emulators for those of us that are space constrained.
I don't have the space to have more than two desktop-sized machines
set up simulaneously. So for me, an emulator is a substitute for
spending an hour packing away one machine and setting up another. Of
course, the machines with good emulator support are the ones that I find
least interesting so they'd rarely get set up anyway.

In the case of CP/M machines, running an emulator on a modern machine with
a decent OS greatly improves the development environment. I find myself
developing software on my PIII in a native editor, compiling/assembling with
MyZ80, and transfering it to the CP/M machines for use there. (Not that I do
a lot of CP/M development.)

Emulators that come with source can also be a lot of fun to hack at.

Eric
Received on Fri Sep 14 2001 - 10:37:07 BST