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Here are the links to the SavaJe GSPDA Jasper S20 developer phone.

Here are the links to the SavaJe GSPDA Jasper S20 developer phone.

Except of course that java is completely insuitable for writing an operating system in,

Really? What makes you say that?

Java works just fine for Operating Systems, just like LISP did before it. It's just that the idea of *needing* assembly/C for OSes is so ingrained that people can't get over it.

running an OS written in java we would need the average machine from five to ten years from now

Bull. In fact, Java OSes have the potential to be *faster* than today's OSes. Why? Because no hardware protection is needed from code. It's all handled in the memory model, making it impossible for GPF/segfaults to occur.

What we should be focusing on is improving the security of native code execution through mecahnisms such as pro-police, systrace, chroot/jails, improvements in memory guards for instance see the recent changes to openbsd for the way it should be done.

Dead. End. Until you can absolutely control the code, someone will always find a way out of your little cage.

No its not hyperbole, look at eclipse it needs (with the jvm) 450MB of ram and is miserably slow to work with, all of other software running on my machine at the same time has a smaller footprint and is much more responsive.

It is hyperbole. Eclipse is a development environment, not a regular desktop app. Comparing footprints there is just silly. I can find you plenty of "native" development environments with very similar footprints.

What needs to happen is the realization that software development cannot be undertaken by the lowest common denomitator, bridge design isn't, java, C#, are not a panacea, they are a bandage for a social problem not a technical one.

As long as you trust the programmer instead of a system that makes the problem impossible, you WILL have security holes. Not because the programmer is lazy (though that doesn't help), but because he's human and makes mistakes.

One place that you can see the IBM influence is that the SL-6000 dropped the Insignia Jeode Java Virtual Machine that was used in the 5000 series and used the IBM J9 VM.

Unfortunately, both are J2ME Personal Profile VM's, so most java programs have to be ported to work on them. It's too bad that SUN laid down the law and told SavaJe and others that handheld devices are only allowed to run J2ME and not J2SE, even if SavaJe did manage to port it and make it work. So, no applets in your web browser :(

Another Java issue is that you can't simply tap on a jar file and expect it to run. Instead, you have to jump through all sorts of hoops to create a special installation package just for the Zaurus. This makes it difficult to use PersonalJava applications that were designed to work on any platform without doing some re-packaging. Although I understand the impetus to use the linux-ish packaging system they use for linux based applictions, it's disappointing that they didn't use something like JNLP for PersonalJava applications.

Perhaps you should give savaje a try.

LOL but someone managed to squeeze full-fat swing into an ipaq. And it was none to shabby. The company was savaje. They packed the whole of J2SE 1.3 and a custom micro OS into about 20MB!

I among one of the handheld developers don't understand why should we spend time on something strictly controlled by a proprietary vendor, while we have so many other platforms to work with, and with much bigger market share?

savaje OS is a Java operating system for the ipaq and mobile phones. It is not a virtual machine for an OS, the virtual machine is the OS. If you've got an old ipaq you can download the installer and give it a whirl. Impressive things about it are:

its fast
its small for full j2SE (the whole OS is about 20mb)
its complete - the same java as on your desktop (not just the mobile version)
the os API is the full J2SE Java API with swing and Java 2D, so Java programmers don't need to learn anything new
existing java programs don't need to be recompiled or ported
it plays mp3s!


unfortunately the company developing/marketing have proven themselves to be untrustworthy and foolish. What was once a promising little developer community around the OS has recently been deserting in droves.

Still it was interesting to play with, and definate proof of concept that Java 2 standard edition makes a rich and compact OS all on its own

There is a development group working on a port of Waba for the Newton. Waba is a Java'ish environment that is aimed at small platforms like PDA's. By porting this environment to the Newton, this group is making continued development on the Newton feasible for those who can't get the old Newton Development software. It also bouys up Newton development by providing an expanding market for the resulting software to the developer because the code will work on many other platforms (and PDA's) as well. In addition most third party Waba software that was written by those who aren't necessarily targeting the Newton platform, will, nonetheless, work on the Newton.

Unfortunately, this wonderful work is not much good to me because my third, and only functional Newton is just barely functional. It is so delicate that moving it around causes complete system failure. It's fine on my desktop, but I can't take it with me, which defeats the purpose. of having a PDA! Getting yet another replacement has become increasingly difficult and expensive. Consequently, I've switched to an iPAQ running the SavaJe operating sytem. At least that supports a FULL J2SE (Java) environment so there are lots of applications that I can run on it.

Best of luck to those WabaNewtDev folks out there. If you're a Newton enthusiast, you should definitely consider supporting these folks. They do great stuff!

..answer !

But unfortunatly SavaJe XE seem to be only there for redular ARM

Anyway it is still a cool OS : Check it out !

Java was meant for TVs and coffee makers.

And, hey, what do you know. It's in TVs and coffee makers. And phones. And Lego, for God's sake. Your problem is?.

Whoops, no, Java will replace the OS on clients.

And hey, what do you know, it did

Whoops, no, sorry, "java applets suck" and all us Java advocates *really* meant that Java was really meant to run on the server all along.

Yup, it works server side as well. It always did. Nothings changed. Your problem is?

we snagged an iPaq 3670 and installed ARM Linux

What you should have done instead was install SavaJE XE on it, which is a Java operating system which fully supports Java 2 and runs much faster than any JVM that runs on top of an operating system.

Saveje. It might not be for the palm, but it's amazing on an iPaq.

(Suggesting something thats not Linux, this will kill my Karma)

Have you seen/considered SavaJE, a Java2SE OS, while it's not X, I've seen X for Java. It makes me wayy to tempted to nip into the local CashConverters and pick up a netBook...

mlk (happy Revo owner)

we've used a custom solution to create user
documentation. Our markup is very simple and
very generic (no format-specific information like
font sizes or specific styles, etc.). This allows
us to target multiple targets that we can use
for our final document. Right now, we're targeting HTML, but we have done MIF and some
limited RTF (and could do other markups, including
XML variants, tex, troff, etc. if necessary).

The nice thing about a custom solution is that you
can tailor it to your needs. Our docs are structured
in a hierarchical man-page style tree, so we've developed a shorthand that allows easy
specification of links to other man pages.

One big advantage of a text-based markup is that
it is very easy (and quick) to make a change,
commit it to the CVS tree and regenerate the
target document. (I used FrameMaker several
years ago, and generating HTML output was a
painful process.
And of course, a text markup generally produces
smaller document sets (unless you include a lot of
images).

Another thing that we've done is to automatically
generate things like index pages (per section)
and a permuted index to the whole set. All of
these are simple tools under the control of
shell scripts or makefiles.

See SavaJe docs for the results.

Ed

Java CAN be faster, if it doesn't have to go through the overhead of another OS. Check out the SavaJe solution, at www.savaje.com. They've replaced the OS (Windows) on an iPAQ, with their own OS that just does Java.

I've been looking at these beauties for a while now, not only because you can put linux on 'em, but there's a Java OS you can put on as well, from Savaje. I haven't had any experience with either yet, but as soon as I can get my hands on a chunk of cash....

As an unrelated question, why is slashdot posting PR for a company that doesn't have a product out yet? So they're working on a JavaOS, they haven't built it yet. All you can download on the site is a stupid white paper.

sorry, forgot to turn on html... savaJe

many of the original developers from the Inferno project are now working for a comany called savaJe tech that is working on a product called jscream, a java kernel and os for information appliances.