Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles
available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The Hercules
emulator is a computer program which allows software designed for IBM
mainframe computers and for plug-compatible mainframes to run on other
types of computer hardware, including personal computers. Although there
are other mainframe emulators which perform a similar function, Hercules
is significant in that it enables private individuals to run certain
mainframe computer software on their own computers. Hercules runs under
multiple host operating systems including Linux, Windows, FreeBSD,
Solaris and Mac OS X and is released under the open source software
license QPL. It emulates most mainframe CPU instructions and select
peripheral devices only; the operating system has to be supplied by the
user.
