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theamktoday at 3:09 PM1 replyview on HN

Either "already" or "not any time soon", depending on how you count.

Already - because you have VMs and backwards compatibility. As long as you keep using Intel x86_64, your apps would run, no emulation needed. Or you can use the VM.

Not any time soon - because the computers are not speeding up that fast. 10 year old computers are still being used today, and even the latest CPUs are not orders of magnitude faster. So for a full-system emulation, the most well-known ones is x86 VM's on Apple Silicon, and according to reports, full-system mode is still not close to regular PCs.


Replies

kevin_thibedeautoday at 5:15 PM

16-bit x86 code dependent on interacting with real hardware under precise timing doesn't always work well in a VM.