[Mono-list] CLI and devices

Sergey Chaban serge@wildwestsoftware.com
Wed, 5 Jun 2002 17:02:39 +0300


> The mindstorms have too little memory to run any CLR.

I agree, mindstorms have very limited resources:
8-bit CPU (H8) and 32 KB RAM (if I remember correclty).

Nonetheless, something like JavaCard may be possible:
* Very limited libs;
* No garbage collection;
* No floating point;
* No threads;
* Modified binary format (with preprocessing);
* interpreter coded in assembler;
(With such restrictions, there are Java runtimes less than 50KB)

Take a look at the Kernel profile in the ECMA specs, it defines
one such stripped-down version.
Also, to make it usable, you would want some device-specific
extensions - such as sensor controls, IR-communitations etc.

BTW, another approach is upload-time compilation.
Anyhow, size matters in this particular case.
In any case the task is non-trivial, to say the least.


Sergey