Welcome to Interactive Illustrations, a web companion to the book Inside the Java 2 Virtual Machine by Bill Venners. These web pages contain Java applets that interactively illustrate the concepts presented in the text of the book.

The Book
Inside the Java 2 Virtual Machine describes the Java virtual machine, the abstract computer on which all Java programs run, and several core Java APIs that are intimately related to the virtual machine. Through a combination of tutorial explanations, working examples, reference material, and applets that interactively illustrate the concepts presented in the text, this book provides an in-depth, technical survey of Java's architecture and internals.

• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• About the Author

The Applets
Links to the Java applets that serve as interactive illustrations to Inside the Java 2 Virtual Machine are given here:

• Eternal Math -- A simulation of a Java virtual machine executing a few bytecodes that perform some basic mathematical operations.
• Getting Loaded -- A simulation of a Java virtual machine loading a class file.
• Heap of Fish -- A simulation of a garbage-collected heap.
• Fibonacci Forever -- A simulation of a Java virtual machine executing a sequence of bytecodes that generate the Fibonacci series.
• Conversion Diversion -- A simulation of a Java virtual machine executing a sequence of bytecodes that perform type conversion.
• Inner Int -- An applet that demonstrates two's-complement integers.
• Prime Time -- A simulation of a Java virtual machine executing a sequence of bytecodes that generates prime numbers.
• Logical Results -- A simulation of a Java virtual machine executing a sequence of bytecodes that demonstrates logic operations.
• Inner Float -- An applet that demonstrates IEEE 754 floating point numbers.
• Circle of Squares -- A simulation of a Java virtual machine executing a sequence of bytecodes that performs floating point arithmetic.
• Three Dimensional Array -- A simulation of a Java virtual machine executing a sequence of bytecodes that allocates and initializes a three-dimensional array.
• Saying Tomato -- A simulation of a Java virtual machine executing a sequence of bytecodes that performs table jumps.
• Play Ball! -- A simulation of a Java virtual machine executing a sequence of bytecodes that throws and catches an exception.
• Hop Around -- A simulation of a Java virtual machine executing a sequence of bytecodes that uses finally clauses.
• Slices of Pi -- A simulation of a Java virtual machine executing a sequence of bytecodes that calculates pi.

Click here to view a page of links to the source code of these applets.

The Internet
Here are several links to related sites on the World Wide Web:

• The Resources Page -- For links to more information about the material presented in Inside the Java 2 Virtual Machine, check out The Resources Page.
• McGraw-Hill -- Inside the Java 2 Virtual Machine is published by McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-135093-4.
• JavaWorld -- Portions of the Interactive Illustrations were derived from articles written by Bill Venners and first published in the column "Under The Hood" in JavaWorld, a division of Web Publishing, Inc., June 1996 through October 1997.
• artima.com -- Bill Venners is the author and webmaster of artima.com, a resource for Java and Jini developers. You can reach him at bv@artima.com.