Hardware-Near Programming in the Common Language Infrastructure

Virtual machine-based programming languages, such as Java and C ^# have made the programming of desktop computer systems simpler, less error-prone and more efficient. Embedded systems development rarely benefits from this advantages. This is because the disciplines special needs, such as direct hardware access and timelininess, are rarely considered in these environments. In particular, virtual machines usually do not allow for accessing hardware directly, making it impossible to express substantial parts of embedded systems inside the virtual environment. By specifying additional rules, describing an implementation of a conforming compiler, and presenting examples, we show how the virtual machine defined by the ECMA standard 335 can be carefully extended to support hardware-near programming