Editing Hercules (emulator) (section)

==Usage==
Hercules can be used as a development environment to verify that code is portable (across Linux processor architectures, for example), supports [[symmetric multiprocessing]] (SMP), and is 64-bit "clean."

There is also a large community of current and former mainframe operators and programmers, as well as those with no prior experience, who use Hercules and the public domain IBM operating systems as a hobby and for learning purposes{{citation needed|date=November 2018}}. Most of the skills acquired when exploring classic IBM mainframe operating system versions are still relevant when transitioning to licensed IBM machines running the latest versions{{citation needed|date=November 2018}}.

The [[open source software|open source]] nature of Hercules means that anyone can produce their own customized version of the emulator. For example, a group of developers independent of the Hercules project implemented a hybrid mainframe architecture which they dubbed "S/380"<ref>{{citation | contribution-url = https://mvs380.sourceforge.net | contribution = S/380 Description | publisher = Sourceforge | title = MVS/380 project}}.</ref> using modifications to both Hercules and to freely available classic versions of MVS (and later VM and DOS/VS), enhancing the operating systems with some degree of 31-bit (and as of 2016, 64-bit) binary compatibility with later operating system versions (and as of 2018, 32-bit is also supported).