[cacois]

So your argument is that its closer to virtualization, than to emulation?

[Gormo]

Not really. And I'm not sure the concept of virtualization makes sense when applied to hardware in the first place.

The FPGA is actually implementing the hardware. It's like using a newly manufactured edition of the original.

[fourfour3]

The FPGA is used to implement an approximation of the original hardware’s functionality - not a perfect clone of the original hardware itself, which means they have their own unique bugs and inaccuracies compared to the original designs.

I think “emulation” fits as a reasonable description of this, personally - at least as something an average person will understand.