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Java for the Gameboy Advance
heavy writes "For everyone who is wondering what else they can do with their newly purchased Gameboy Advance SP comes JAMiD - Java Action Media Interactive Device. What is it? "The aJile Systems JAMiD JAM-ID100C cartridge will turn your Nintendo® Game Boy Advance or Game Boy Advance SP system into a jammin' Java interactive gaming machine capable of playing those free Java games popping up all over the Internet. Based on Sun Microsystem's J2ME Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP), the JAMiD accelerated Java platform will run MIDP 1.0/2.0 games and other multimedia MIDlets." It can also play MP3s...a developer version available now and a consumer version is coming soon. Way cool."
Im a homebrew developer for the GBA and the GBA is very easy to program for as it is. I belive this may just be a bottleneck in speed for the already slow ARM7 processor it has. The GBA does not have any 3D acceleration hardware (it shouldnt, it has incredible 2D capabilities which is it's market), so i think Java3D would also be out of the question. This may be a good way to let the people who have never worked on an imbedded system port there own projects very quickly, but if you know JAVA, try doing C for GBA. http://www.gbadev.org is a great place for finding out news on the GBADEV scene, as well a forum with many intelligent programmers and artists. http://www.ngine.de is home of the HAM development kit which for sompe people is very good. Also on EFnet there is the #GBADEV channel. There are usually about 50 people there at any given time.