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by Wowfunhappy 1398 days ago
In this case, however, the term "to emulate" predates microprocessors, so it clearly can't have ever referred exclusively to ISA translation!

"Emulator" might be a more recent term—it would be interesting to see the etymology, actually—but it's reasonable to conclude that anything which "emulates" must be an "emulator". (Also, OP didn't actually use the word "emulator".)

Edit: Nope, the word "emulator" dates back to at least the 1800s (although it has certainly grown in usage more recently): https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=emulator&year_...
1 comments
entropicdrifter 1397 days ago
Huh, what happened in 1984/85 that made "emulator" so much more popular a term than before?

Aha! It was Apple's Macintosh release, which included an Apple II emulator built-in: https://books.google.com/books?id=Ti8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA13&lpg=P...

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Wowfunhappy 1397 days ago
I don't think it could have been just that? Usage peaked in 1984, but it rose quite steadily starting in the early 70s.

I do assume most of the increase in usage was related to computers/software, however. The timing is right.

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