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  • Re: machine simulation, Self-hosting and the 6502

    From John Levine@3:633/10 to All on Tuesday, March 31, 2026 18:06:14
    According to Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com>:
    On 3/30/26 20:34, Waldek Hebisch wrote:

    In 1960 in Poland a small team developed a machine based
    on ferrite logic elements. Before going to hardware they
    emulated the design on a bigger machine (but this bigger
    machine was less capable than say Commodre 64). I would
    guess that US designers did such things earlier.


    I don't know about "earlier" but IBM had an S/360 simulator running on a >7094 (?) that they used to develop OS/360 before the hardware was
    available. This probably would have been early '60s, so about the same >timeframe.

    Here's the manual, second edition dated 1964. I don't think the 360 architecture
    was defined until at least 1963 so this would be a little later than 1960:

    https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/7090/C28-6501-2_7090_SupportForSys360_Nov64.pdf

    In 1957 IBM had a program for the 705 to simulate a 650:

    https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/705/32-7763_Simulation_Of_650_On_705_1957.pdf

    Back in the 1950s before there were compilers there were interpretive systems that interpreted programs in an idealized machine language that was easier to program than the underlying machine. That was sort of the same idea.

    --
    Regards,
    John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
    Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)