http://www.jnode.org/
Welcome to JNode.org, the website of the Java New Operating System Design Effort.
JNode is a simple to use & install Java operating system for personal use.
It runs on modern devices.
Any java application will run on it, fast & secure!
JNode is open source and uses the LGPL license.
The JPC Project
Computer Virtualization in Java
http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/jpc/index.html
Welcome to the JPC Project
JPC is a pure Java emulation of an x86 PC with fully virtual peripherals. It runs anywhere you have a JVM, whether x86, RISC, mobile phone, set-top box, possibly even your refrigerator! All this, with the bulletproof security and stability of Java technology.
JPC creates a virtual machine upon which you can install your favourite 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 multilayered security makes it the safest solution for running the most dangerous software in quarantine - ideal for archiving viruses, hosting honeypots, and protecting your machine from malicious or unstable software.
JPC has been developed since August 2005 in Oxford University's Subdepartment of Particle Physics. It can be run on a number of devices, from PC's to mobile phones, and you can see some of the results of JPC in action (more soon!). Some might see JPC as part of a nefarious plot by mad scientists who want to harness every last CPU in the world for their research - but we prefer to see JPC as Java-hardened protection against their buggy programs.
JPC has been released in beta for members of Oxford University, and we are working on a suitable general licence for external users. In the meantime JPC technology can be licensed on a case-by-case basis, and we also offer our expertise to tailor the technology to your needs. If you would like to know more about our services and solutions then please contact us.
- Cross-Platform
- JPC is completely implemented in Java, so it works seamlessly across all major computing platforms, including Windows, Linux and MacOS. JPC even works on non-x86 based hardware like ARM and SPARC.
- Secure
- JPC comes with the assured security of being run entirely within the Java sandbox. This means that the emulated hardware is completely isolated from the underlying hardware and cannot damage or interfere with it in any way.
- Flexible
- With JPC, you have complete configuration control with virtual peripherals and software libraries. And if you mess up, you only mess up your virtual PC. Just delete your disk images and start again.
Key Features of JPC
JPC Key Features Explained
Cross Platform
Programs are generally compiled for a specific computer architecture and, once compiled, will only run on that machine (or another like it). Pure Java can be compiled once and run on any platform that has a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Thus JPC runs on Windows, Linux, MacOS, mobile phones, set-top boxes, ARM boards and anything else with a JVM without the need to build different versions for each platform.
Secure 
Malicious software in a JPC virtual computer cannot harm your real computer because your real machine is protected by multiple independent layers of security. The first layer is JPC itself, supported by the industry-standard Java virtual machine and then scrutinised by your machine's real operating system. These layers combine to form an impregnable shield for your computer and data.
Flexible
You can interact with the virtual computer through a window on your desktop, or just watch it while a virtual robot taps at a virtual keyboard. The different components of the virtual computer are completely separated. This enables you to use the hard disk of one computer, the cpu of another, while diplaying it all on a screen across the network and typing input on a keyboard on a mobile phone.
The JPC Core
There are many diferent emulators, some of which have been written in Java: e.g. Commodore 64, Atari ST, Nintendo and ZX Spectrum. Emulators for the x86 PC are rare and until now there hasn't been one written in pure Java. This is because the x86 PC is an extremely complex architecture, with a long history of incremental improvements, and therefore a legacy of many subtle features! Consequently everyone believed an x86 emulator written in Java would be far too slow to be of any use.
JPC is our answer to this challenge: a pure Java x86 PC emulator which currently runs up to 10% native speed. This puts it amongst the fastest emulators of an x86 PC, despite needing only a pure Java environment. At first sight it might seem impossible for a Java based emulator to approach other emulators which use "native" code. However JPC uses a number of optimisation strategies to achieve an acceptable speed. In fact these strategies are very similar to those used by modern x86 hardware; e.g. using a RISC microcode set to streamline the x86 instructions. JPC then uses dynamic binary translation to get the best performance.
In fact, as the Hotspot JVM applies its own optimisation strategies on top of JPC, some parts of programs can run even faster inside JPC.
Real and Protected Mode
PC's have two commonly used modes of operation. The first, Real Mode, is more of a historical relic. MS-DOS runs in real mode and all modern PC's start their boot process in real mode. JPC currently runs real mode at up to 10% of native speed, hampered by the fact that Real mode is essentially a 16-bit mode of operation. The second, Protected Mode, is a 32 bit mode, to which all modern operating systems switch to during the boot process. JPC currently has both real and protected mode interpreters - where microcodes are executed one by one, but the real speed comes when code is compiled. The real mode compiler is fairly advanced but the protected mode version is currently less mature. Check back soon to see improvements.
