It 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 sem

It 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.