Fast Hardware Enables Better Emulation
There are several kinds of software emulation. One type is the classic emulation of an older system, by a newer and much faster system - such as a modern Windows computer playing games from an Atari. Soimetimes people just rewire the code, with the aid of software tools when possible; but when the hardware is fast enough, you can just interpret each command and run it in the new system.
Another type of software emulation is modeling, where a piece of software emulates a machine or an animal or a brain process.
When a software emulation is good enough, you cannot tell the difference from the original.
Another type of software emulation is modeling, where a piece of software emulates a machine or an animal or a brain process.
When a software emulation is good enough, you cannot tell the difference from the original.
Case Study
Years ago (before the Internet), there were private and independent networking companies. I worked for one of them, called Tymnet. Tymnet did all their own hardware and softare; but the hardware was outdated, and so the company put much of its resources behind a new hardware design - which failed. At that point there was a lot of concern. But a small group of us suggested that we move to a new hardware platform: industry-standard boards, based on Motorola 68K cpu's. That way, as those boards evolved (in speed, and size of memory) then we would gain abilities right along with it.
But to run our in-house software, on a different hardware platform meant we had to create a software emulator: it interpreted our old code, in real-time, and ran it on the new hardware. This including simulating Registers, which was quite a big slowdown. Nevertheless, it all worked - and Tymnet moved to the new platform, called Turbo Engine Nodes (described in Wikipedia). So that problem was solved - though, competing with a new network (called, the internet) proved a much bigger challenge.
But to run our in-house software, on a different hardware platform meant we had to create a software emulator: it interpreted our old code, in real-time, and ran it on the new hardware. This including simulating Registers, which was quite a big slowdown. Nevertheless, it all worked - and Tymnet moved to the new platform, called Turbo Engine Nodes (described in Wikipedia). So that problem was solved - though, competing with a new network (called, the internet) proved a much bigger challenge.
Evolution of Software
For a time, people believed that human programmers would not be as needed, once machines started writing more code, doing more simulations and software emulation. But the last few years have shown that human coders are needed more than ever, partly because there has been such a proliferation of environments, number of machines, and capabilities of hardware.
It was also believed that the greatly increasing complexity of CPU's and chips meant that fewer and fewer companies would do their own hardware - but this is also changing. Now that there are so many people with expertise, and so much outsourcing possible, companies have more opportunity to do their own, sophisticated hardware - and Tesla's new AI chip for self-driving cars is a great example of that. You can learn more about emulation in Wikipedia.
It was also believed that the greatly increasing complexity of CPU's and chips meant that fewer and fewer companies would do their own hardware - but this is also changing. Now that there are so many people with expertise, and so much outsourcing possible, companies have more opportunity to do their own, sophisticated hardware - and Tesla's new AI chip for self-driving cars is a great example of that. You can learn more about emulation in Wikipedia.
The Future of Software Emulation
Hardware can be made incredibly fast. It is going to be more and more common that any system can run other code, if someone bothers to adapt it - or to emulatie it. People might prefer one OS over another but particular apps can be made to run in other environments with relative ease. There are more and more tools to make this possible. It is even possible someday that we will see a software emulator created, to run another (older) software emulator - to make some very old code still viable.
One thing is for sure - human programmers will have jobs for a long time to come, and haing some skill at coding - even if just for scripts - is potentially useful for anyone.
One thing is for sure - human programmers will have jobs for a long time to come, and haing some skill at coding - even if just for scripts - is potentially useful for anyone.
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