Emulation

What Does Emulation Mean?

Emulation is the process of imitating a hardware/software program/platform on another program or platform. This makes it possible to run programs on systems not designed for them.

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Emulators, as the name implies, emulate the functions of one system on another. Thus, the second system behaves like the original system, attempting to exactly reproduce the external behaviors of the first system.

Techopedia Explains Emulation

For example, the majority of printers widely used today emulate HP laser jet printers. This enables the software written for a real HP printer to run on non-HP printer emulation, producing equivalent printing standards.

Software programs, which provide modern devices and computers with interactive access to an application on a mainframe OS or other host systems, are called terminal emulators.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…