Java and serial I/O on the iPaq

So, I want to be able to control something from the serial line off the
ipaq. And I want to do it from Java (boo, hisss).

Here's what I've explored, mostly java issues.. mostly boiling down to
the following issue:

- I got the JRE for ARM, ok that works. But there's no JDK available.
So, I can't compile. I find jikes and other open source compilers, but
they are JUST compilers, javac replacements only, so NO libraries
(important ones like java.lang). So I'm not really sure what exactly to
do about that. Which pieces are cross platform (that I could steal from
an i386 jdk) and which aren't isn't as clear to me as it used to be. If
some one knows how to fix this, I'd be on my way.

Why do I need to compile on the iPaq? Well, I was hoping to use the
java COMM API, a bit overkill but I already have code that works for my
issue. Well there is a linux implementation of this API, but it needs
to be compiled... and during this process it needs javac, and needs to
do things with javac that require libraries, and so that doesn't work.

Next up: JNI, C code.. Well, Linux serial I/O is simple enough in C,
so I thought about just doing a JNI wrapper. But JNI wrappers still
need to be compiled on the ARM processor, so I'm still hitting the javac
compilation wall. Grrrr...

I think my last hope here is do a socket connection between some C code
doing serial stuff and platform independent java code I compiled
elsewhere. But, that's gross (but will probably work).

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Thomas

-- 
Thomas O'Connell               Georgia Institute of Technology
Aware Home Lab Manager                    College of Computing
www.awarehome.gatech.edu             www.cc.gatech.edu/~thomas