Most softies who have tried to work with the internals of the IBM PC have discovered that if it doesn't work, you're screwed. Either nothing happens at all, or the motherboard emits one of those hideous beep codes. Now unless you happen to have a beep code table handy, there is no indication as to what went wrong. If the hardware were a piece of software that came with source code, you could just recompile, but instead you have to use trial and error -- take out and reinsert. Clearly, I can't be the only one who thinks it's insanely difficult to debug hardware configurations.

I think it is high time that we get rid of this problem once and for all. If we replace all hardware with emulators, we will no longer have to worry about loose chips, or dirty connectors. C64, Amiga and Atari emulators have been with us for years, and I hear that the x86 emulator is nearing perfection. When that one can run all software without problems, I think we are ready to remove what must be the biggest obstacle to computing of all time: hardware.

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