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Eh? Yeah.Virtualization has become a prominent technology for computing multiple operating systems in a single host environment.Emulators are resource hungry.Java is slow as it got its own VM.But wat will happen if an emulator is developed using Java? What if an x86 emulator?I thought I was reading "Mythago Wood" when I have gone through JPC project done by Oxford Physics students.A new step in grid computing.You can run an x86 PC on top of JVM!!.Interesting thing is that they don't use native codes for the the coding ie no JNI and even then they were able to get a decent performance.See the linux demo here.It supports DOS programs too,so that we can have a decent DOS emulator to play some old games or run applications.So a chance to run a dos game in java supported handhelds.JPC creates a virtual computer upon which you can install your favorite operating system in a safe, flexible and powerful way. It aims to give you complete control over your favorite PC software's execution environment, whatever your real hardware or operating system, and JPC's multi-layered security makes it the safest solution for running the most dangerous software in quarantine - ideal for archiving viruses, hosting honey pots, and protecting your machine from malicious or unstable software.They ran DOS in N95...


The scientific computing for eg Particle physics or Genome projects where millions of computers are needed will get the advantage of this project.Users can use their own trusted JVM implementation and then use pure Java code to run the potentially dangerous x86 code.Multiple computers connected by this technology can have operating systems with particular security level without affecting the host machine.The JPC helps to run the x86 operating systems on any other platforms.I think people who made this did work very hard.These x86 CPU instruction set is large and complex with opcode lengths vary from 1 to 15 bytes and the complex graphics card implementation with various resolutions will be cumbersome.They have developed their own byte-code compiler with optimized to reduce object churn and make it faster.It has real mode and protected mode for various memory access levels.Thus we can have the quarantines and honey-pots for security experiments.
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