Re: 6502 illegal opcodes questions

["sicklittlemonkey" <Nick.Westgate@gmail.com>]

mdj wrote:
> Write a large desktop application for the proprietary API
> of any platform, be it MacOS, Windows, and you've got yourself a pretty
> thick portability barrier.
>
> If you write your application in a portable language/platform such as
> Java (which is really the only successful one) you eliminate this
> problem.

I would argue that the modern web browser (i.e. HTML/Javascript/AJAX
etc) is effectively the only other major 'portable' platform. Somewhat
ironically, Microsoft pioneered AJAX technology, but probably backed
off in horror once they realised that WebOutlook didn't really need to
have a MS backend.

> This has been happening for years, and is really only a few steps away
> from being complete. Sun is the only vendor left who is really pushing
> their version of UNIX in favour of Linux, everyone else has decided to
> fold their own unique advantages back into the Linux kernel. At this
> point it becomes the big bad guy Linux versus the other Open Source
> alternatives ;-)

With Sun (Java) and the open source community inching ever closer, it
could be hoped that this day is not far off.

Still, .NET can't be ruled out, as Microsoft have bought some of the
finest minds that money can buy (Jim Blinn, sob sob) and are pushing
hard to gain ground in high-growth markets like mobile/embedded, the
video game industry, home consumer/media managemen/formats etc.

They've twisted Java into something not-half-bad. Just not portable
outside it's own ecosystem. Which is very bad.

Cheers,
Nick.