Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/08/03/java-ported-to-commodore-64.html
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Yes, but Why??
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ETA: That is amazing though, I had always considered Java to be too inefficient to run on anything older than a mid-90s desktop.
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because some programmers are just pure evil bastards.
gotta give em credit when they manage something like this though.
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A JVM without GC is an evil thing indeed.
As a Clojure hacker, the thing I value most about Java is the rich ecosystem. The idea of a JVM that can’t take full advantage of that ecosystem saddens me.
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This is going to date me terribly, but in the 1980s, it was quite common to use virtual machines on 8-bit computers – the UCSD Pascal system used a virtual machine called the p-machine that allowed compiled programs on on system to run on another, exactly like the Java JVM. I’m not sure if there was ever a Commodore 64 port, but there were certainly Apple ][ and Commodore Pet ports, so it would have been completely feasible.
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Yeah so? Java was originally designed to run on small devices, and it tells me that millions of devices do run it every time I do an update.
However. for perverted awesomeness I think I’ll see if Pocket Smalltalk will run on my Palm IIIe.
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Another good product would be Java Grinder from Michael Kohn. Been around since 2014. https://www.mikekohn.net/micro/java_grinder.php
He got java running on Commodore 64 (help from Joe Davisson) and other platforms
Nay, billions!
Just because you can…
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Ah hell. Just keep it in the lab.
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Another bytecode-based virtual machine from that era was the Z-machine that was used for Infocom games such as Zork, Planetfall, etc.
But even with the Z-machine, Zork had to be split into three separate games to fit it into the constraints of 8-bit systems.
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Wasn’t it more to fit the constraints of the floppy disks? (Also, money.)
They say that they did a rewrite from the original version:
‘ZORK: The Great Underground Empire - Part I’ …was developed by the original authors based on their ZORK (Dungeon) game for the PDP-10. It features a greatly improved parser; command input and transcript output files; SAVEs to any device and file name; and adaptation to different terminal types, including a status line on VT100s. Note: this is not the FORTRAN version that has been available through DECUS. This version has been completely rewritten to run efficiently on small machines - up to 10 times as fast as the DECUS version.
…ZORK runs under RT-ll, HT-ll, or RSTS/E and requires as little as 20K words of memory and a single floppy disk drive. The game package, consisting of an RX01-format diskette and an instruction booklet, is available from Infocom, Inc., P.O. Box 120, Kendall Station, Cambridge, Ma. 02142."
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So Java is finally being used for its intended dolphin?
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