Now what would be cool is if everyone submitted there own programism and we ran it on someones machine and see how the interact. The only problem is that we REALLY BADLY need some form of 'master' program to monitor everything... That way we can trace what exactly is being changed on some of the runtimes, and if it gets to hectic on the processor, we could trigger Armegeddon or the Ice Age or something...

Ok, somebody write some interface that uses A VM!!!!!!!!! and I'll be happy to offer my system as a test bed. The VM can get whatever information it needs about my system, but can't change nothin important.

Bother me enough (read: ask me nicely) and I just might write you your own machine language to use.

CGP: How about using an emulator like Bochs to act as a VM?

The number one problem is, that in order to avoid massive unrunable applications, they need to be in bytecode. True, we could most likely use java as the VM or something...

Note: Is it just me or is this post getting really long real fast? May I suggest a move to IRC?

X-G: Eh? An ix86 emulator? that'd be kewl, then they could run in protected mode and stuff, not having to worry about an OS or nothin.
But having custom-made VM would be kewl, because you can create all kinds of intresting simulations that might be really wacky.

Seeing as how I need practice writing VMs, I think I'll do it anyways and if people use it, they use it

[edit]
Kanzure: Do you realize how impossibly hard that'll be on WIndows? Too much work.

having to re-write the progranisms for a VM without a C++ compiler will suck, I'm dumb!. I might write a VM...or not, I got to work on my German homework...

Ok, plan for the VM, should you like to use it:

Instructions, in ASM like format:

mov     l1, l2      ; Moves l2 to l1
xor     l1, l2, l3  ; XORs l1 with l2, stored in l3
or      l1, l2, l3  ; ORs ...
and     l1, l2, l3  ; ANDs....
not     l1, l2      ; Inverts l1  and stores in l2
cmp     l1, l2      ; Compares l1 with l2.
jl      l1          ; Executes at l1 if the previous cmp had l1 < l2
jg      l1          ; ... l1 > l2
je      l1          ; ... l1 == l2
jmp     l1          ; Continues execution at l1

Anything else?

To keep consistancy, each instruction will be the same size, so programs don't have to worry about that.

Also, you'll note the lack of registers. Also, the code segment is indistingusished from the data segment for extra fun

Yup..We need to maybe figure out the vital parts, not DLL crap, but ... other..stuff...

William - can you write a special prog thing that only writes to 1 new file, and runs that 1 new file? That way...well, it wouldn't take up that much memory..

(WORTHLESS 128 MEG OF RAM LAPTOP)

Ok, so you don't kill random progranisms, you just kill the progranisms that are the smallest on disk or something...

How many registers does your VM have? Three is pretty much minimum ...

Now what would be funny is if a program 'adapted' to take control of the VM itself and started going Rogue on your system. That would be hillarious.

And, come to think of it, you could implement some form of list in memory of all currently running processes. You could reduce the processor load by only running 10-20 at a time and cycling to another set...

CGP: You're going to need the C register at the very least.

Well, the tree would be kewl, because there could be a node that decided to change other nodes, and it would work much better and more efficiently than just a string of bytes. Altough, consider other possibilities as well.

Perhaps model an actual cell's function as it joins with others?
Perhaps model a neural network that can rewire itself as other neurons are more active?
Perhaps a box of hairpins that makes shapes of it's own accord?

No idea is too off, here

Carrus: gimme a channel