I don't mean to try and revive a long since dead thread, and I can see why it would not be possible to create an emulator like that the way most emulators are, but then i've always wondered why they are made this way. Why go through the pain of trying to emulate an OS within an OS? Sure its possible, and as VMware proves, with enough resources, it can even be usable. However it all seems like the the least efficient way to do things when it comes to console emulation.
I can remember many years ago, when i was browsing the web on my little x486, i found an NES emulator that did not run this way. Instead, you would load it onto a boot disk, and restart your computer. It would load up the "emulator" as the only OS running (with exception of perhaps DOS). I can imagine the creators of this piece of software ran into the same problems we face now. The Computer simply was not powerful enough to run both windows and the hacked-console OS at the same time.
I have yet to see this method used in any other emulation attempt, and wonder why. Would it really be so impossible to strip the firmware and OS out of the xbox 360, or ps3, recreate the drivers needed to access things like video, sound, and user input peripherals, and then boot into it using a boot disk?
Perhaps there is a bit more to it then that, but I can't imagine it would be anywhere near impossible, and certainly I believe if not easier, it would be more successful that the current software emulation techniques we use.
Any thoughts?
P.S. I noticed the URL tags weren't working correctly, so i decided to change it
