[TUHS] machine code translation,as mental architecture models

[John Levine]

It appears that Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu> said:
>> portable implementation language by 'compiling' the
>> high-level CISC VAX instructions (and addressing modes)
>> into sequences of RISC instructions.

This idea, emulating one machine on another by translating strings of
instructions (basic blocks in compiler-ese) is quite old. I don't know
who did it first, and would be interested to hear if anyone knows,
although I expect it was reinvented multiple times.

It used to be harder because programs would store into the instruction
stream but these days code is all read-only it's quite standard. I'm
typing this on my M1 Macbook using an editor that thinks it's running
on an x86.

R's,
John