Hardware emulation

[shady]

I know that you can emulate a hardware in your RAM/CPU, but how? what to do?

[Szech]

Well, I doubt you'd be able to do it on your own, but in my last CS course, the book said:
Hardware can essentially be thought of as frozen software. That which can be done in software can be done in hardware, and that which can be done in hardware can be done in software.

Someone stop me if I jump to too many conclusions, but the processor can essentially determine the circuitry and logic of a hardware device in software (i.e. winmodems), and emulate it. Obviously, this takes processor time, and will not work as efficiently as true hardware, but it gets the job done.

[bdunn]

In lots of ways this is already done. Many 2d graphics cards rely on 3d emulation, disk compression software emulates a larger drive, winmodems, and way back when an 80287 was $200 I have a 80287 shareware emulation TSR that was only $10 to register. It was a wonderful piece of software that allowed my 12MHz 286 to run software it otherwise couldnt.