In 1991, a group of Sun Microsystems engineers led by James Gosling decided to
develop a language for consumer devices (cable boxes, etc.). They wanted the
language to be small and use efficient code since these devices do not have
powerful CPUs. They also wanted the language to be hardware independent since
different manufacturers would use different CPUs. The project was code-named
Green.
These conditions led them to decide to compile the code to an intermediate
machine-like code for an imaginary CPU called a virtual machine. (Actually, there
is a real CPU that implements this virtual CPU now.) This intermediate code
(called bytecode) is completely hardware independent. Programs are run by an
interpreter that converts the bytecode to the appropriate native machine code.
Thus, once the interpreter has been ported to a computer, it can run any
bytecoded program.
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develop a language for consumer devices (cable boxes, etc.). They wanted the
language to be small and use efficient code since these devices do not have
powerful CPUs. They also wanted the language to be hardware independent since
different manufacturers would use different CPUs. The project was code-named
Green.
These conditions led them to decide to compile the code to an intermediate
machine-like code for an imaginary CPU called a virtual machine. (Actually, there
is a real CPU that implements this virtual CPU now.) This intermediate code
(called bytecode) is completely hardware independent. Programs are run by an
interpreter that converts the bytecode to the appropriate native machine code.
Thus, once the interpreter has been ported to a computer, it can run any
bytecoded program.
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