Imagesource: https://apple.com/

Imagine that Apple - in addition to the ARM IP cores - planted supplementary circuits in their M1 and M2 CPUs, just to execute certain instructions of 8080 CPUs directly in hardware instead of software.

This sounds rather pointless at first, considering how many instructions such a thing can execute per second. The software emulation of a few, quite old instructions doesn't really matter, or does it?

Blake Patterson alas @blakespot presents an interesting piece of investigation on the topic. Because actually the real situation is somewhat different. Apple plays on the fact of in-house CPU production in a rather ingenious way, and - utilizing the care described above - makes sure, that Rosetta2 can emulate x86 code as incredibly fast as it actually does. 💨

The story behind it is interesting, entertaining, and a nice read for your train ride home.