Ask HN: Differences between hobbyist emulators and professional ones?

1 pointmarkus_zhang4 comments

By saying hobbyist emulators I mean the various NES emulators, MAME and similar products -- not necessarily of "lower" quality, but definitely not used in, say, defense industry.

By saying professional emulators I mean the ones used in the defense industry, serious embedded development and such.

Thanks for any input.

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I would assume they use some sort of terminal emulator if that counts. There's probably legacy systems emulators that they use. Your definition of hobbyist and professional is strange. Just because a company hired people and paid them to develop an emulator in the broad sense of what an emulator is doesn't make it more professional... I mean you have to think about also all of the things that come with defense industry. Simulating board layout chip logic and all of that could be emulation if you think about it and that is more niche than just professional.

Thanks. Yeah I know it's a bit weird to define that way but that's the best I could think about.

NES emulators in the defense industry?

I don't think there is one? Would love to see one though...

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