One of the main research issues in the history of computing that involves computer hardware is how to conduct research that, ideally, requires
extensive experimentation with the hardware itself. The researched hardware
may not exist any more, may be unavailable, or be in a fragile state preventing its use. In fact, most of the computer hardware collected by science museums can be displayed but not experimented with. The hardware unavailability problem can be partially addressed by the development of emulators -- modern software that emulates the behaviour of a historical computer system. Software emulation has been initiated in late 20th century. The emulated hardware ranges from vintage game consoles and home computers to mainframe computers. While some of these emulators represent a considerable software engineering effort, little attention has
been paid to the methodological issues such as the development of testable criteria to determine the degree of historical accuracy of an emulator. In his talk, Prof. Stachniak will discuss the hardware emulation efforts at York University Computer Museum from both the software engineering and methodological points of view. The presentation will also include emulation examples.