EDSAC on your desk.

From: Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com>
Date: Mon Sep 21 20:41:49 1998

On Tue, 22 Sep 1998, Huw Davies wrote:

> I guess the only difference is that BCPL is significantly smaller and
> simpler. I doubt that I could move Java to a new environment within a week,
> whereas I'd be confident that anyone with some simple programming skills
> could move BCPL, even with the limited documentation that exists.

That's true, but it's also part of the reason that Sun defined several
levels of Java runtime. I haven't kept track of the latest haps, but last
I checked they had "personal" and "embedded" Java which basically defined
subsets of the run-time environment that both facilitate porting effort
and minimize footprint.

But for something like a desktop environment to run pretty GUI simulators,
you'd want to port the GUI glue. You don't have that "problem" with other
languages simply because they didn't define a GUI abstraction.

In any case, nailing down a common simulation runtime environment would
just be one of the hurdles. It'd also be nice to define, for example, a
software bus so that simulator writers could easily share CPU and
peripheral implementations. From experience, I can tell you that writing
a good 386 simulation, for example, is tough, and I wouldn't wish that
particular wheel-reinvention upon anybody I liked :-)

-- Doug
Received on Mon Sep 21 1998 - 20:41:49 BST