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What's old is new again.

This reminds me of Digital's VEST technology. VEST would convert VAX programs to run on Alpha. From 32-bit CISC to 64-bit RISC. Nearly 30 years ago.

https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs343/resources/binary-transl...

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Or the PET emulator from 38 years ago that Commodore released because it wasn't sure that the C-64 would have any software.

Ditto for the C-64 CP/M cartridge of the same vintage.

The PET emulator was an interesting case. It relied on the fact that BASIC 2.0 on the C64 was similar enough to that on the PET (and IEC serial devices similar enough to IEEE-488 ones, from the BASIC side, at least) that many programs ran unmodified. The interesting bits were adding some goop so that many common POKEs and PEEKs from BASIC would "just work" as well (like CB audio, screen memory, etc.). This was even enough for some machine language programs, though many choked on the different memory map.

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