I appreciate you making the distinction that anything which creates a custom instruction set is thus a VM. I think that's the way a lot of people here who are currently at my throat seem to define it, so I'm glad you put it in clear terms. I would define it as a custom instruction set plus some sort of plug-in that allows those opcodes to be run closer to the metal than the language they're written in. FWIW I'd call this thing more of an obfuscation framework. But maybe I'm just a dino. I am really glad you made this comment, though. It clarified for me why so many people went bananas when I said this wasn't a VM.