Week 1 Session: Four things that should not work

Run a PC, a kernel and two games in a browser tab, and form an opinion about what each one costs before anybody tells you

22 February 2027

No target yet, and nothing to install. You are here to build intuition you will spend the rest of semester making precise.

Open four things and use them properly — not for ten seconds.

1. v86 — a full x86 PC. Boot something old and something less old.
2. JSLinux — Bellard’s emulators, including 64-bit x86 and RISC-V.
3. A Unity WebGL build — a commercial engine compiled to WebAssembly.
4. Anything you can find that surprises you. Bring it to the room.

For each one, get a number or an observation rather than an impression: how large was the download, how long until it was usable, does typing feel immediate, does the fan spin up, what happens when you resize the window or open a second tab.

Then argue about it. You will find the four sit at very different points, and that they are not ordered the way “how much is being emulated” would predict. By the end of the hour the room should have a rough shared answer to: what does this approach cost, and what did it buy?

Nobody is expected to know why yet. Write down the question you most want answered — week 2 is where you pick something to answer it about.