4 ms·
I love this writeup, esp around how the dev team architected the work to derisk the work before hardware was available and how the emulator/instruction interpre
by nerpderp82 6y ago
I love this writeup, esp around how the dev team architected the work to derisk the work before hardware was available and how the emulator/instruction interpreter actually sped up development velocity over using hardware directly.
- aph_at_redhat 6y agoIt worked far better than I expected. Around the turn of this century I was involved in bringing up the software for a new processor made by a certain large semiconductor company (you might be able to guess!) The early hardware didn't work perfectly, the operating system wasn't ready, and the compilers were flaky. The cost of writing a simulator was cheap when compared with avoiding all of that pain and getting first-mover advantage.