Real-time extensions to the Java/sup TM/ platform: a progress report

Java/sup TM/ technologies have had a major impact on the software industry. The Java/sup TM/ Platform has brought a simple, powerful object oriented language and set of libraries to a large developer community. It has delivered on its promise to bring increased productivity, "write once run anywhere", security, and dynamically downloadable code to desktop and workstation environments. Java technologies are now being extended into embedded devices. These devices often require software that exhibits real time characteristics. Java language semantics are not specified tightly enough for such software, and certain API extensions are required. The paper explores the technical issues involved in defining real time extensions to the Java platform that meet this need.