JN: An Operating System for an Embedded Java Network Computer

Abstract

The implementation of an embedded operating system explicitly designed to support the Java Virtual Machine on the National Semiconductor NS486 embedded PC is described. This system, the Java Nanokernel (JN), supports an Internet web server written in Java and a web Camera that can be controlled from a remote web browser. JN in principle can currently run any Java program that does not use a local display device. This paper is primarily a system overview and a summary of lessons learned. keywords: Java, JavaOS, embedded systems, soft--realtime, OS implementation, kernel software architecture, JN, TCP/IP, KA9Q, NS486SXF. 1 Introduction This paper reviews lessons learned from implementing a custom embedded operating system designed specifically to support the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) on a small `single-chip' embedded PC attached to the Internet. JVM interprets Java, a multithreaded language that typically runs on top of a host operating system [Gos95]. We use the term JVM to refer to ..