A Legacy System can be emulated on industry-standard servers using the Charon software, which allows the existing operating system, its software, and all applications to be run without change. No reprogramming is required. In fact, the emulated system may be much faster than the original system!
However, there is another choice for emulation: Open
Source. They include
SIMH
and TS10
.
| CHARON | OPEN-SOURCE |
|---|---|
| A dedicated reseller will be assigned to the customer for software and installation. | The source code can be downloaded from the Internet for free. |
| The Charon source code can be placed with an escrow company in special circumstances. | The source code can be modified by the customer. |
| Commercial-grade product. | Not intended for commercial use. |
| Passes the same validation tests as used on the original hardware. | May or may not pass validation tests. |
| Emulators are available for Sparc, Alpha, VAX, PDP-11, and HP-UX. | Emulators are only available for Alpha, VAX and PDP-11. |
| Charon emulators support all the operating systems and applications as the original hardware. | May or may not support all operating systems or applications. |
| Dedicated Charon support, available for business-day or 24x7x365. | No support. |
| All Charon products are in active development. | Some open-source emulators haven't been updated for years. |