Folks, Well I have now found one of Crispin Rope and Mark Priestly's papers on ENIAC
http://eniacinaction.com/docs/AddressableAccumulators.pdf It says "ENIAC's original control method was modified in 1948, after which point its wires and switches were left mostly untouched while it ran only a single (but slowly evolving) program: a microcoded interpreter for a virtual von Neumann architecture machine." And "ENIAC's application programs were written as a series of two digit instruction codes for this virtual machine and loaded into its read-only function table memory by turning knobs to set digits." I would therefore argue that "emulation" is as old as computing itself... Dave Wade G4UGM > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Wade [mailto:dave.g4...@gmail.com] > Sent: 29 October 2017 15:54 > To: 'Paul Koning' <paulkon...@comcast.net>; 'General Discussion: On-Topic > and Off-Topic Posts' <cctalk@classiccmp.org> > Subject: RE: Which Dec Emulation is the MOST useful and Versatile? > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Paul > > Koning via cctalk > > Sent: 29 October 2017 12:42 > > To: Eric Smith <space...@gmail.com>; General Discussion: On-Topic > > Posts <cct...@classiccmp.org> > > Subject: Re: Which Dec Emulation is the MOST useful and Versatile? > > > > > > > On Oct 28, 2017, at 10:09 PM, Eric Smith via cctech > <cct...@classiccmp.org> > > wrote: > > > > > > IBM invented computer emulation and introduced it with System/360 in > > 1964. > > > They defined it as using special-purpose hardware and/or microcode > > > on a computer to simulate a different computer. > > > > I am not sure they invented computer emulation. I think that the concept > Emulation/Simulation is as old as, or perhaps even older than computing. > Whilst it was a pure concept Alan Turing's "Universal Turing Machine" was a > Turing machine that could emulate or simulate the behaviour of any arbitrary > Turing machine... > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Turing_machine > > .. and somewhat later when ENIAC was re-wired to execute programs stored > in the function switchs, this was a partial simulation/emulation of EDSAC > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC#Improvements > > well that's what Crispin Rope asserts, but his book is still copyright and I can't > find any reference to this on the net,, > > > > That's certainly a successful early commercial implementation of > emulation, > > done using a particular implementation approach. At least for some of > > the emulator features -- I believe you're talking about the 1401 emulator. > IBM > > didn't use that all the time; the emulator feature in the 360 model > > 44, to emlulate the missing instructions, uses standard 360 code. > > > > It's not clear if that IBM product amounts to inventing emulation. It > seems > > likely there are earlier ones, possibly not with that particular > > choice of implementation techniques. > > > > > > > Anything you run on your x86 (or ARM, MIPS, SPARC, Alpha, etc) does > > > not meet that definition, and is a simulator, since those processors > > > have only general-purpose hardware and microcode. > > > > > > Lots of people have other definitions of "emulator" which they've > > > just pulled out of their a**, but since the System/360 architects > > > invented it, I see no good reason to prefer anyone else's definition. > > > > "emulation" is just a standard English word. I don't see a good > > reason to > limit > > its application here to a specific intepretation given to it in a > particular IBM > > product. It's not as if IBM's terminology is necessarily the > > predominant > one > > in IT (consider "data set"). And in particular, as was pointed out > before, > > "emulator" has a quite specific (and different) meaning in the 1980s > through > > 2000 or so in microprocessor development hardware. > > > > paul > Dave