what does an emulator do?

[ntsha22]

K guys, im new, im dumb, i need some help. Im gettin my xbox done tomorrow and getting an emulator with it. what i want to know is what is an emulator? what does it do? sorry for such a dumb question

[hagbard]

We got a nice help page (http://emulator-zone.com/doc.php/help.html) to answer this question. Welcome here though :)