Emulator

A configure script does not necessarily have to be made with autoconf. Since you
have a modern build system based on SCons, why not have a script named "configure"
that runs a SCons target that probes the host system?

SCons has a set of autoconf-like checks, but it runs them at the moment you declare
them, unlike the build itself which creates a dependency graph before it starts
executing anything. As a result, the autoconf-like checks cannot be run in parallel
(scons -j option), which is a shame with multicore CPUs becoming the norm.

I think the ideal solution would be to build a dependency graph of checks in SCons.

Well I have no idea how to write configure scripts. If you do, well, just step
forward and do it.