Re: [arch-general] A universal Operating System API - why don't we have it?

Laurie Clark-Michalek <bluepeppers@archlinux.us> writes:

Java? The success of the language is based around the fact that almost every computer has the runtime installed, regardless of operating system. Does that not count as a global API?

The concept is called "write once, run anywhere". An early example is UCSD Pascal, developed in the late 1970s. UCSD Pascal's P-code is somewhat analogous to JVM bytecode. There were implementations of the P-code interpreter for many early microcomputers. Perhaps UCSD Pascal would have been more popular if it weren't so expensive. IIRC, the IBM PC version was priced at $495. MS-DOS was cheaper. Java may be the most popular example of "write once, read anywhere", but it was not the first. -- Chris