!!Con West 2019 - Michael Albaugh: “Wheels within whiles!” or possibly “Whiles within wheels!”

Presented at !!Con West 2019: http://bangbangcon.com/west I built a multi-layer stack of emulations to include 150 years of digital computing tech — from a (relatively) modern laptop through 5 layers of emulation to Charles Babbage’s 1840’s Difference Engine — using various bits of code I had lying around. In the process, I asked myself: “why do I have that code lying around!?!” This started me thinking about emulation, the whys and ways of its uses: * A practical way to extend the life of mature software * A tool for conservation, to help understand the design[er]s of past machines * An aid to communication with possibly remote co-designers on future machines Emulation can help communicate through space and time! I’ll go over some of my favorite layers from that emulation stack and talk about aspects of each, and lessons learned along the way.