Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators

Tony Duell wrote: Only slightly differently. I'd rather spend time writing an emulator for a machine that I own - for which there is no emulator, so that others who don't can enjoy it too. :-) And yes, if one of the machines I have, doesn't work, I'll certainly spend time fixing it. For me, it's less fun repairing an existing machine than writing an emulator - mostly because I don't want to cause more damage than has already been done, but so far I've managed to do just fine at it. Writing emulators is almost like designing and building a machine from scratch, except you do it to the spec of the existing machine, and you do it in code rather than on a schematic or breadboard. A lot of stuff can be reused, but in a lot of ways it's a lot harder if you have to write code that emulates chips for which there is no emulator. Then it gets to be not just designing the machine from scratch but also a lot of its chips too. Imagine having to build, say a VIA 6522 or Z8530 gate by gate without looking at the schematic of the existing one, but just with the documentation and then firing up the machine and seeing it work. :-D It's an incredibly wonderful feeling when it actually does work. Most of the time though, it's back to debugging the thing and getting it just right, and looking to see what odd thing the guest OS is trying to do with it and in how that differs from what you'd expect in the documentation of that chip, but there it is, the OS is trying to do something odd that obviously worked in the real thing, but therefore undocumented, so you have to readjust your idea of how that chip is supposed to work and reimplement it. As for playing with emulators of machines I don't own, I certainly do, but that's more for learning about stuff I don't already have, and if it strikes me, I might go out and get the actual machine to add to the collection (if I can afford it - price, space, power are factors.) There are some emulators I run regularly, for example Basilisk II - it's hard to lug around a IIsi with me, though I do have one at home, but very easy to run old Mac OS 68000 apps by launching it. Sometimes I'll fire VICE and mess with Pet emulation (even though I do have an 8032), or fire up MAME, and enjoy some old arcade games I enjoyed when I was a kid.