When the Source Code Is Gone, Emulation and Translation Bring Old Arcade Games Back to Life
No Source Code? No Problem
What do you do when you need to port a program but only the binary survives? This ACM Queue article explains how emulators and automated translators bridge the semantic gap between old hardware and modern systems, using arcade game preservation as the prime example. It quantifies the cost of emulation, weighs translation into C or assembly, and shows why the original binary is often the most authoritative specification you have.
In fact, the software itself is the most authoritative description available.