Either "already" or "not any time soon", depending on how you count.

Already - because you have VMs and backwards compatibility. As long as you keep using Intel x86_64, your apps would run, no emulation needed. Or you can use the VM.

Not any time soon - because the computers are not speeding up that fast. 10 year old computers are still being used today, and even the latest CPUs are not orders of magnitude faster. So for a full-system emulation, the most well-known ones is x86 VM's on Apple Silicon, and according to reports, full-system mode is still not close to regular PCs.

16-bit x86 code dependent on interacting with real hardware under precise timing doesn't always work well in a VM.

> 16-bit x86 code dependent on interacting with real hardware under precise timing doesn't always work well in a VM.

This reminds me of the 8088mph demo - 1k colours in CGA, and a bunch of other impressive stuff.

8088 MPH: We Break All Your Emulators (oldskool.org)

319 points by drv on April 8, 2015 | hide | past | favorite | 99 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9338944

https://trixter.oldskool.org/2015/04/07/8088-mph-we-break-al...

true, but the question was about "my currently running system (anno 2016)" - which means intel core most likely. And at that generation, there requirements for precise timing is extremely rare, it's mostly PCI/PCIe devices and they can be shared with VMs just fine.