I have a transistor-level 8086 simulator that mostly works but needs some cleanup and bug fixes. For now, I'm concentrating on analysis of the 8086 rather than finishing the simulator.
I haven't really timed it let alone optimized it, but about 50 clock cycles per second. If I had a nice graphical display like Visual 6502, it would be way slower.
Yes, the simulator is extremely helpful for analysis. I started doing the analysis on paper, but it's very easy to make a mistake and end up confused. The simulator is also very helpful when trying to understand complicated state machines such as the bus control circuitry. So I plan to put more emphasis on simulation for future projects. The tradeoff is that it takes a lot more time up front to get the simulation working.
