Taking off the training wheels

This past week I have worked my way though the online Java tutorial and reached a point of diminishing returns reading through Java in a nutshell.  The further into Java I get, the more I've come to second guess my decision.  The embedded programmer in me is appalled by the JVM which is a total black box.  Talking to other engineers in the office it sounds like most software development is just taking a collection of black boxes and stitching them together.  I plan on continuing with Java for the time being, mostly as a learning exercise.  I think that I will likely want to restructure the project at some point and the lessons learned before then will be valuable.  Besides, half of the challenge was to learn object oriented programming, and I should make an honest attempt before I return to the safety of C.  Hardened software developers are probably shaking their heads at that.
In the upcoming week I look forward to getting my teeth into the real project, not just a tutorial example.  I installed the original exploration game to have it for a reference.  It is impressive that software exists to get a DOS based game to run on a 64bit Windows 7 platform.  I tip my hat to the people behind the DOSBOX project. 

 This is a screenshot from the original game 'Exploration'.  It shows the map, currently the ship is in port, the castle looking building, and it's info is listed off to the bottom left.  A screenshot roughly looking like this is what I hope build 0.2 will look like though with much rougher looking graphics for the shape of the land and sea.