Emulatsioonikihte

Emulatsioonikihte, known in English as emulation layers, are software components that allow a computer system to behave like another system, enabling it to run software or use hardware designed for that other system. Essentially, they act as a translator between the operating system or hardware of the host machine and the target system's requirements. This is particularly useful when migrating to a new operating system or hardware architecture but needing to run older or incompatible applications.

One common application of emulation layers is running software designed for a different operating system. For example, Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is a popular emulation layer that allows many Windows applications to run on Linux and macOS. It does this by reimplementing the Windows API (Application Programming Interface) calls in a way that the host operating system can understand. Another example is running applications from older gaming consoles on modern computers through emulators that mimic the original hardware.

Emulation layers can also be used for hardware virtualization, though this is often a more complex implementation. In such cases, the emulation layer can abstract the host hardware and present a virtualized version of the target hardware to the guest operating system or application. This allows for running different operating systems simultaneously on the same physical machine. The performance of emulation layers can vary depending on the complexity of the system being emulated and the efficiency of the layer itself.