Emulator what is it

Techopedia Explains Emulator. What Does Emulator Mean? Techopedia Explains Emulator An emulator regenerates an original computer environment with the help of software and hardware. Share this Term. Tech moves fast! Stay ahead of the curve with Techopedia! Join nearly , subscribers who receive actionable tech insights from Techopedia.

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Please try again. You're in! By this definition, is it therefore impossible to simulate the real world in software? I don't think we can accurately represent the underlying state of the real world - only emulate observable properties I do not agree with this "[Simulations] model as much as possible every detail of the target to represent what the target does in reality.

For instance, Flight Simulator probably does not model fishes in the sea because it is useless for the purpose of the simulation. Exactly the opposite answer here: stackoverflow. It seems that most people use these words the other way, as in: simulation generally happens on a higher level than emulation notwithstanding that both words are rarely used together in a given context. See for example the Android Emulator versus Apple's Simulator.

I propose switching around the words in this answer to stay consistent with the majority of definitions, and to prevent confusion for future visitors. I think this answer switched the 2 terms. Show 5 more comments. An emulator can replace the original for real use. A simulator is a model for study and analysis.

Henk Holterman Henk Holterman k 28 28 gold badges silver badges bronze badges. Henk Your "cockpit" example is fantastic though I understood it after I read Toybuilder answer. Thanks : — Khaled Alshaya. Virtual PC does not emulate, it virtualizes. QEmu, on the other hand, does emulate. In both cases, the name should be a hint.

HOW it emulates the PC is through virtualisation, but that's more of an implementation detail. You might argue that hardware virtualisation is a superset of emulation, in that can provide accelerated CPU support, exclusive hardware device access, etc. I mean, system virtualization in general should not only simulate external behavior but pretty much every nook and cranny of a system, unlike application virtualization where e.

Where can I find said flight emulator? Show 4 more comments. Dheepak J Dheepak J 1, 1 1 gold badge 11 11 silver badges 2 2 bronze badges. Clearest answer I've seen. For me, could only be improved by omitting the extra sentence or integrating it into your excellent contrasting definitions :-D — doughgle. Fully agreed. It could be more formal by saying that an emulator requires the same interface and behavior of the emulated entity, a simulator doesn't. It's the same as "usage as substitute", but more formally testable.

Your answer is different from others. Is Virtual PC a simulator or an Emulator according to you? It's contrary only to Pontus and Aeolai's. It can do every thing what a real PC can do. Pri See the answer of this thread concerning Virtual PC.

It's both, it depends from the perspective. For example you can still say it's a simulation because it cannot heat as a real computer does. A good range of debate starts. Hope i am right! Few derive the difference based on usage, its english meaning, functionality, affordability. But when i apply all the answers in my case study, its not an easy thing — A user.

Show 1 more comment. The phrase "ROM emulator" reminds me of virtual video game consoles. Don't try this at home kids :D — Gearoid Murphy. I think this is a very precise definition of Emulation. So, for example Wine is a simulator because it doesn't necessarily give the same precise output defined in Windows? You might call it an adaptor. I suppose simulator isn't a bad way to understand it either, but it's not really much closer than emulator.

WINE is emulation, in this spectrum. It has the outside appearance of linking Windows binaries but if you were to look to the internals you wouldn't learn anything about Windows. Some years ago I came up with a very short adage that, I believe, captures the essence of the difference quite nicely: A simulator is an emulator on a mission.

Simple Explanation. If you want to convert your PC running Windows into Mac, you can do either of these: 1 You can simply install a Mac theme on your Windows. Vishnu Vivek Vishnu Vivek 1, 1 1 gold badge 15 15 silver badges 27 27 bronze badges. This is both simple and completely wrong. Pontus Gagge Pontus Gagge Hamad 4, 13 13 gold badges 33 33 silver badges 65 65 bronze badges. Ramsharan Ramsharan 2, 2 2 gold badges 21 21 silver badges 25 25 bronze badges.

The key difference is that: With an emulator , you want the output exactly match what the object you are emulating would produce. With a simulator , you want certain properties of your output to be similar to what the object would produce. The definitions of the terms: emulation -- surpass or exactly match simulate -- imitate in appearance or character. Jay Elston Jay Elston 1, 1 1 gold badge 18 18 silver badges 37 37 bronze badges.

Note -- this is very similar to the answer to a question that has been marked as a dup of this one stackoverflow. I did add a definition of the terms asked for in the question but not yet answered and also added some info about uses for simulation finite element analysis for something more than mimicking a device. This question is probably best answered by taking a look at historical practice.

Zaid Zaid Here are the exact definitions taken from a computer science glossary: A simulation is a model of a system that captures the functional connections between inputs and outputs of the system, but without necessarily being based on processes that are the same as, or similar to, those of the system itself. Aeolai Aeolai 1 1 silver badge 11 11 bronze badges.

A google search gives the following definitions of simulate and emulate: simulate imitate the appearance or character of. None None 5, 1 1 gold badge 38 38 silver badges 50 50 bronze badges. Abhinav Abhinav 63 7 7 bronze badges. To find the right term is actually very easy, just think about following: A simulation does not do anything for real. Let's see some examples. Simulated vs. Emulated Rain Take a water hose in the garden and let it rain. Emulated Computer While you might think "a simulated computer can have an outcome" this is practically wrong reasoning.

So an emulation can be part of a simulation and vice versa. Emulated Filesystem If you simulate a filesystem, you probably, for practicability, will choose to save the files onto your real filesystem as-is perhaps with some additional meta-information. Emulated World If our world is simulated, we are simulations, too. I stop here, because hallucinations lead us to something completely different. Tino Tino 7, 3 3 gold badges 50 50 silver badges 55 55 bronze badges.

Emulator: Consider a situation that you know only English and you are in China. In the end it depends on the context that which solution better suits project needs. Style: MLA. English Language Learners Definition of emulator. More from Merriam-Webster on emulator Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for emulator. Get Word of the Day daily email! Test Your Vocabulary. Test your visual vocabulary with our question challenge!

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