Why Is It Called a Terminal "Emulator"?
Quoting: Why Is It Called a Terminal "Emulator"? —
In general conversation, when you hear the word emulator, it’s frequently used in the context of games emulation. In particular, it’s usually associated with retro games emulation.
If you want to play the video games of yesteryear, you either need to have access to a working example of the original hardware, or you need a way to run the game on modern hardware. There are modern devices you can buy that will play old video games, and some even come preloaded with games.
Apart from using actual dedicated hardware, you can use software emulators on smartphones and computers. These mimic the original hardware so that, as far as the game is concerned, it’s running on its original target platform.
On Linux, a terminal emulator fulfills an entirely different need.