miniJava of my dreams

[pickup]

after spending the best part of the week struggling to install some
thing that would run MIDI applets with accurate timing on an old
windows95 PC (tried javasound086-jsyn-midishare-jsml
-jdk1.5-jre1.5...) and which i could debug in an IDE (tried bluejay,
jedit, eclipse, symantec, jgrasp....) the whole process has been a
nightmare. eventually i got JavaSoundDemo to run (wonkily) using
jdk1.5.0 but it takes 3 minutes to load, won't loop and feels as if
the machine is going to have a heart attack. i still haven't got a IDE
setup to debug this as suggested on sun's developer forum. (my old
IDE can't deal with the new JVM.)

anyway i had a dream just now that everything i need to write debug
compile and run java applications should be able to fit in under 1MB.
a miniJava for amateurs.

here's what i need:

java graphics api
java midi api
java events and basic stuff like maths, strings, etc.
java compiler
java debugger preferably a simple code editor (simple IDE)
simplest possible JVM to run them on.

i want to create simple midi applications/applets.
if these could be made into window executables that would be a bonus

what i don't need

no swing - the applications will be graphical, no buttons
no beans - i'm just making small things
i don't care about security
i don't care about RMI, IDL and the 100 other parts of java that i
don't understand and will never use.

exasperated. i just want to code simple applets. why do i need to
install 200MB to do this.

any suggestions would be appreciated.
what is the minimum set of files/apps that i need?

 

[Rhino]

after spending the best part of the week struggling to install some
thing that would run MIDI applets with accurate timing on an old
windows95 PC (tried javasound086-jsyn-midishare-jsml
-jdk1.5-jre1.5...) and which i could debug in an IDE (tried bluejay,
jedit, eclipse, symantec, jgrasp....) the whole process has been a
nightmare. eventually i got JavaSoundDemo to run (wonkily) using
jdk1.5.0 but it takes 3 minutes to load, won't loop and feels as if
the machine is going to have a heart attack. i still haven't got a IDE
setup to debug this as suggested on sun's developer forum. (my old
IDE can't deal with the new JVM.)

anyway i had a dream just now that everything i need to write debug
compile and run java applications should be able to fit in under 1MB.
a miniJava for amateurs.

here's what i need:

java graphics api
java midi api
java events and basic stuff like maths, strings, etc.
java compiler
java debugger preferably a simple code editor (simple IDE)
simplest possible JVM to run them on.

i want to create simple midi applications/applets.
if these could be made into window executables that would be a bonus

what i don't need

no swing - the applications will be graphical, no buttons

How do you plan to make an application graphical without a GUI?

no beans - i'm just making small things
i don't care about security
i don't care about RMI, IDL and the 100 other parts of java that i
don't understand and will never use.

exasperated. i just want to code simple applets. why do i need to
install 200MB to do this.

Java is nowhere near that big.

any suggestions would be appreciated.

Get a newer PC running a recent version of Windows (or some other recent
version of an operating system) with a generous amount of memory (512 MB
works for me) and a decent sized hard drive (80 GB works for me)? Then you
can install Java 1.5 on it, as well as a decent IDE and have smooth playback
of your MIDI files, just like I do.

You don't REALLY expect someone to construct a special version of Java just
for the relative handful of people that are still running a Win95 machine do
you? Why not just ask for a miniJava that will run on a Commodore 64 or an
Apple 2+? Or your wristwatch?

Rhino

 

[pickup]

How do you plan to make an application graphical without a GUI?

just by drawing everything in paint(...) including buttons.
not pretty but it works.

Get a newer PC running a recent version of Windows (or some other recent
version of an operating system) with a generous amount of memory (512 MB
works for me) and a decent sized hard drive (80 GB works for me)? Then you
can install Java 1.5 on it, as well as a decent IDE and have smooth playback
of your MIDI files, just like I do.

You don't REALLY expect someone to construct a special version of Java just
for the relative handful of people that are still running a Win95 machine do
you? Why not just ask for a miniJava that will run on a Commodore 64 or an
Apple 2+? Or your wristwatch?

i take your point but that's a $1000 solution.
i'm really asking people what is the easiest (and smallest) way of
doing graphics and sound in java. i naively wish sun would create a
version which just dealt with these things - the fun stuff!

 

[Rhino]

just by drawing everything in paint(...) including buttons.
not pretty but it works.


i take your point but that's a $1000 solution.
i'm really asking people what is the easiest (and smallest) way of
doing graphics and sound in java. i naively wish sun would create a
version which just dealt with these things - the fun stuff!

Have you looked at J2ME? This is "small footprint" Java meant to run on
small, constrained devices like PDAs. I wrote code to play .wav files on my
Palm PDA and it works fine. I believe that you can play MIDI and MP3 files
on PDAs as well although I haven't done that myself.

Of course, you'd still need a decent PC to develop on. I haven't actually
heard of a development environment that actually runs on a PDA; the normal
approach is to develop and test on a proper PC, then transfer the code to
the PDA when you're finished.

Don't hold your breath waiting for a MIDI- or sound-only version of Java,
particularly something that will run on Win95.

Rhino

 

[Larry Barowski]

Java is nowhere near that big.

JDK 1.5.0_01 is about 120MB installed, if you don't install the
separate JRE. The docs are around 240MB. For serious
development you'd unzip the sources, adding another 120MB.