With the emergence of multiplatform production systems and network-centric computing, the software industry has witnessed the resurgence of the virtual machine. Rather than committing to any single operating system, software engineers have embraced platform-neutral development tools and run-time environments. Virtual Machine Design and Implementation in C/C++ provides an in-depth look at the construction and underlying theory of a fully functional virtual machine and an entire suite of related development tools.

The book begins with a discussion of the theoretical underpinnings of the author's HEC virtual machine and its fundamental design goals, and continues with a section on the implementation of the virtual machine and its debugger. The final section focuses on the HEC assembler, including its interface to the native operating system, interrupts, the assembly language, and how to implement object-oriented constructs. There is also an extended discussion of porting the HEC virtual machine to other platforms. To assist in accomplishing this goal, the author offers a critical path analysis of the development process so that readers can build both their own virtual machine and an entire operating system.

The companion CD contains the source code for both the Win32 and Linux ports of the HEC distribution, including the HEC virtual machine, assembler, debugger, and associated development utilities.