GEM80 400 programming and simulation

Has anyone got any experience of programming GEM80 processors. I work for an automation company who will soon be modifying a site which mainly consists of GEM80 400 processors.

I know I can purchase the programming software and hardware itself without any problems, But my question really is do you need to have all the hardware to be in a position to simulate software.
Having not used this equipment before any knowledge would be greatly appreciated.

The site itself we will be working on has a GEM80 400 processor in a rack with approximately 10 other racks connected with the IO cards. Does anyone know if I can I can run the code inside a small setup with just a processor and an empty rack for testing. Obviously I'd need a power supply and whatever else is needed.

And on a different note, The graphics on site will be using a scada package called ALSPA P1200NT. Any insite into what this is like would be handy.

I know this is all quite old equipment now and a lot of people won't have heard of this, But I don't think the site in question is up for upgrading quite yet.

Thanks a lot for any help.

I do quite a bit of work with Gem80 500's and I simulate my programs without the IO attached with no problems.
The ALSPA P1200NT scada package is PCVUE rebadged. We current have version 7.10C which is quite dated I think? It took a while to get used to but I do like it!

Thanks for the reply, It's good to know we can simulate without any IO.

We have spoken to the distributors of the 1200 package, And they spoke about probably needing to upgrade to the latest PCVUE package. So we might put that forward.

Thanks