Simulator or Emulator? What is the difference?

Question

While I understand what simulation and emulation mean in general, I almost always get confused about them. Assume that I create a piece of software that mimics existing hard

Answer 1

This question is probably best answered by taking a look at historical practice.

In the past, I've seen gaming console emulators on PC for the PlayStation & SEGA.

Simulators are commonplace when referring to software that tries to mimic real life actions, such as driving or flying. Gran Turismo and Microsoft Flight Simulator spring to mind as classic examples of simulators.

As for the linguistic difference, emulation usually refers to the action of copying someone's (or something's) praiseworthy characteristics or behaviors. Emulation is distinct from imitation, in which a person is copied for the purpose of mockery.

The linguistic meaning of the verb 'simulation' is essentially to pretend or mimic someone or something.

Answer 2

Emulation is the process of mimicking the outwardly observable behavior to match an existing target. The internal state of the emulation mechanism does not have to accurately reflect the internal state of the target which it is emulating.

Simulation, on the other hand, involves modeling the underlying state of the target. The end result of a good simulation is that the simulation model will emulate the target which it is simulating.

Ideally, you should be able to look into the simulation and observe properties that you would also see if you looked into the original target. In practice, there may some shortcuts to the simulation for performance reasons -- that is, some internal aspects of the simulation may actually be an emulation.

MAME is an arcade game emulator; Hyperterm is a (not very good) terminal emulator. There's no need to model the arcade machine or a terminal in detail to get the desired emulated behavior.

Flight Simulator is a simulator; SPICE is an electronics simulator. They model as much as possible every detail of the target to represent what the target does in reality.

EDIT: Other responses have pointed out that the goal of an emulation is to able to substitute for the object it is emulating. That's an important point. A simulation's focus is more on the modelling of the internal state of the target -- and the simulation does not necessarily lead to emulation. In particular, a simulation may run far slower than real time. SPICE, for example, cannot substitue for an actual electronics circuit (even if assuming there was some kind of magical device that perfectly interfaces electrical circuits to a SPICE simulation.) A simulation Simulation does not always lead to emulation --

Answer 3

In computer science both a simulation and emulation produce the same outputs, from the same inputs, that the original system does; However, an emulation also uses the same processes to achieve it and is made out of the same materials. A simulation uses different processes from the original system. Also worth noting is the term replication, which is the intermediate of the two - using the same processes but being made out of a different material.

So if I want to run my old Super Mario Bros game on my PC I use an SNES emulator, because it is using the same or similar computer code (processes) to run the game, and uses the same or similar materials (silicon chip). However, if I want to fly a Boeing 747 jet on my PC I use a flight simulator because it uses completely different processes from the original (there are no actual wings, lift or aerodynamics involved!).

Here are the exact definitions taken from a computer science glossary:

A simulation is a model of a system that captures the functional connections between inputs and outputs of the system, but without necessarily being based on processes that are the same as, or similar to, those of the system itself.

A replication is a model of a system that captures the functional connections between inputs and outputs of the system and is based on processes that are the same as, or similar to, those of the system itself.

An emulation is a model of some system that captures the functional connections between inputs and outputs of the system, based on processes that are the same as, or similar to, those of that system, and that is built of the same materials as that system.

Reference: The Open University, M366 Glossary 1.1, 2007