Is java suitable for hardware related programming?

Question

in general, is java suitable for hardware related programming?

Answer 1

One small hurdle is that device driver writing often requires very specific machine instructions that are not directly available to any high level language. IN, OUT, LOCK (lock memory bus), VERR (Verify for Reading), RDMSR (Read Model-Specific Registers), move from/to memory without going through the MMU address mapping, ... (those are from x86, there are a few dozen of them.)
In C, you'd write assembler glue. In Java, you'd write assembler glue and call it through JNI.
So if you modify the question: "is Java + JNI suitable", the answer changes a bit. Still, threading and garbage collection are issues: often you can't have anything else happening in the computer when you are talking to a hardware device; it's often timing-dependent and any other parallel bus access migh throw the bus protocol off.
Depends on the hardware, the operating system, and the Java (real-time Java may be required). Be prepared to write the lowest levels of communication in assembly; there is no other language for those bits.
Would you consider controlling Lego Mindstorms hardware related? The low level bits are operating system services in C/C++/assembly, and the high level is Java.