2002-08-19 20:01:48 UTC
I can think of one purpose - I'm working on a project right now in which we're writing a whitepaper for the Department of Defense on rehosting their old legacy simulator machines on PCs using emulation instead of porting the software over to a different architecture/OS.
Every piece of code that is used or changes has to be reviewed for compliance and security - porting over code involves submitting many more lines of code for evaluation than an emulator, which tends to be rather small in size.
Since it's possible that some of the simulators we will be rehosting currently use VAX hardware, I'm evaluating this code as part of my effort in preparing the whitepaper.
Several VAXen are still in use, and emulators might also provide a way to test code or security procedures on them without having to own one, saving developers a boatload of time.
I also run emulators at home for just about every computer system I've owned or worked on, more or less for fun and nostalgia.
Finally, emulation pays off where old programs and/or data may need to be accessed that aren't available in binary form for another processor/platform. Running an x86 version of OpenVMS will not allow someone to run code compiled for a VAX, but running an emulator can often work around these issues.
Just my $0.02. As to the developer's true intentions, your guess is as good as mine :)
