It's 2025 and I still don't get why Java needed signed chars and bytes. Why completely disregard the convenience of using them for array access/etc..
> Gosling: For me as a language designer, which I don't really count myself as these days, what "simple" really ended up meaning was could I expect J. Random Developer to hold the spec in his head. That definition says that, for instance, Java isn't -- and in fact a lot of these languages end up with a lot of corner cases, things that nobody really understands. Quiz any C developer about unsigned, and pretty soon you discover that almost no C developers actually understand what goes on with unsigned, what unsigned arithmetic is. Things like that made C complex. The language part of Java is, I think, pretty simple. The libraries you have to look up.
From http://www.gotw.ca/publications/c_family_interview.htm
Note that Java has unsigned support nowadays, only not as primitive types, although this is considered post Valhala.
For example, https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/25/docs/api/java.base...
Of course, not having access to unsigned quantities makes interaction with other programs difficult :(
Personally I think explicit typecasts are even more suspicious, because introducing explicit semantics is worse than implicit semantics if the explicit ones are wrong.
Can I ask how you keep yourself motivated on such a complex, large and difficult project? This week I have been bogged down in I2C support and find myself wondering if I'll ever reach the next level.
Of course hard projects have their own special rewards, seeing that first pixel appear on screen was a magical moment, and felt like real programming again, especially compared to all these huge modern complex multi-layered software stacks.
Good luck with the rest of your project.
Gotta say that would be a pretty cool evolution of DIY electronics kits to OS kits
Now all we need to do is run your OS on a redstone virtual machine inside of Minecraft, then run Minecraft on it. That way you'll have Minecraft inside your Minecraft.