Intelligent displays programmable in Java

15th November 2016

Joe Bush

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electronica saw demmel products announce the implementation of a Java Virtual Machine on board its intelligent display panels. A prototype was shown on the stand which allows the running of compiled Java code directly on the iLCD panels.

In many cases, an external controller is no longer necessary to control the iLCDs. The application running on the display panel can perform control functions that have run externally before, which significantly simplifies the hardware design.

Java’s object oriented approach is particularly suitable for user interface applications and is much less error-prone than C. Moreover, features like multi-threading are already integrated in Java.

The iLCD Manager XE, available for download at no charge, will be extended to also accommodate the Java development environment. As with other IDEs, comfortable Java code editing with syntax highlighting is possible and included. The Java application can be generated with the integrated compiler, and subsequently uploaded directly onto the display via the USB interface.

An integrated debugger to enable remote debugging of the Java application directly on the display via USB will also be added. Common features like breakpoints and variable inspection are available as well. The entire development and debug environment is available for use within minutes by installing or updating the iLCD Manager XE. There is no additional software or hardware required.

The Java Virtual Machine can be run on the existing iLCD hardware. The memory footprint of the Virtual Machine is extremely small. The extensive iLCD features have been optimised for an extremely fast and efficient execution of Java applications.