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Ok, I understand how you'd run a CPU emulator written in JS, in a browser, but how do these things get raw socket access?

If you're running in a browser, all the network access you get is HTTP AJAX, right?

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No, there are various other mechanisms now, perhaps the most useful and widespread for this situation being WebSocket. It's not without limitations though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebSocket

And it's not quite "the browser" in the usual sense, but Chrome Apps (and, I believe, extensions?) get access to TCP and UDP APIs: https://developer.chrome.com/apps/app_network

But websockets doesn't give you raw tcp, right? Do they have a proxy somewhere?

Yes, the article states they have a proxy.

Not really a proxy - it's pppd in Linux with a vty redirected to a socket. More like a cloud-based dialup ISP that tunnels over existing connections than a proxy.

Well, one way is to implement TCP over HTTP (or some of the lower-level protocols even) but you will need server-side code aswell

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