DISCLAIMER: These notes are from the defunct k8 project which precedes SquirrelJME. The notes for SquirrelJME start on 2016/02/26! The k8 project was effectively a Java SE 8 operating system and as such all of the notes are in the context of that scope. That project is no longer my goal as SquirrelJME is the spiritual successor to it.
09:35
Using a separate FieldValue with indices should make it easier and cleaner to
implement as FieldValue will just get things by their index.
11:23
Well my breakfast was rather nice.
12:18
I have this idea of creating a JavaME 8 virtual machine (the VM part in C) and then having a basic library implementation. I could target Palm OS, DOS, and a few other ancient no longer used systems.
12:20
Actually the VM environment for JavaME has been brought closer to JavaSE and it can be thought up of being a very stripped down version of JavaSE. I can actually run a diff to see which classes are new and which classes are not new.
12:32
Looks like the ME base classes in the CLDC profile has a bunch of classes missing. So I desired to do this I would have to split "-core" into one for "-cldc" and "-core" for the remaining stuff and then solve any potential dependencies that they might rely on. So really my library is just Java SE 8 Embedded. Well supporting that will be the first goal.
12:40
I could probably go ME, but that would not be as useful for me since I do not have many extremely low memory devices. One I do have is Arduinos and a Zilog development board. The arduinos have extremely tiny amounts of flash and RAM so a virtual machine would probably be too hefty to run on it. The Zilog I have is a bit better but not by much. However my own compact1 support would have the possibility of running on hardware such as the Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast which are very memory limited. The Playstation is even more limited with 2MiB of RAM, very ouch.
12:59
It could however help me to understand the byte code better and how it executes though.
13:06
The question is though, do I make it compatible with existing virtual machines so it can become a JVM library (jvm.dll/libjvm.so)?
15:16
Well I have been doing that right now, but it appears it would be more work in the end. The one thing I dislike about C is the lack of namespaces, everything is essentially just a global symbol.
16:26
Actually, forget that, not going to write a C virtual machine interface. However what I will do is move the jvm.h and jni.h to system-command-cc since users might want to compile pre-existing JNI code to run in Squirrnix which is pure Java (and if their native code is C instead of Java then they would have to rewrite everything in Java using Squirrnix specific interfaces).
20:07
My XServe G5 is quite loud but also quite fast. Hotspot does have PowerPC 64-bit support so I wonder if OpenJDK 8 on Debian's PPC64 sid port has it enabled. If it does then it will be super fast.
20:15
Well this method that is essentially just
[FINE] @0 aload_0
[FINE] @1 invokespecial
[FINE] @4 return
Disassembles correctly. This is the method
net.multiphasicapps.k8.kernel.platform.ieee1275.powerpc.Main.
20:19
On that PowerPC 64-bit machine, JamVM at least goes by speedily.
20:58
So far the stuff seems much simpler and more concise compared to the previously mixed assembler and disassembler. Also without MutableOpCode the values can be directly read from the program without having a buffer in the middle.
21:36
Upgrading the Linux kernel on it makes it not sound like a jet anymore, I suppose power management was figured out. Nice however since I no longer need hearing protection from the sound because it is quite low currently rather than just blasting all fans to maximum. I hear a beat though so some fans are resonating differently most likely. This is good though for Squirrnix however as this means the fans or the temperature related stuff is software controlled rather than having it pure hardware. Sometimes the fans speed up (their pitch increases) but then eventually it gets lower.