Java origins & history
Java Logo
- 1991
- The Green Project begins looking for a purpose. They discuss what they do and don’t like d about various technologies. They take apart many electronic devices, like cable TV set-top boxes and remote controls to find a way for the appliances to talk to each other. They discover that the consumer electronic devices like VCRs and settop boxes all have different CPUs and limited memory.
- April, 1991
- The Green Project (Naughton, Gosling and Sheridan) settles on smart consumer electronics as the delivery platform. Gosling starts development of a new programming language called Oak, named for the tree outside his window. Loosely based on Objective C, the language was cut to a bare minimum to be able to fit in the limited space in consumer electronic devices. Furthermore, it was explicitly not tied to any particular CPU.
- August, 1991
- Oak is running its first programs.
- Winter, 1991
- Gosling and Naughton go skiing at Joy’s place in Aspen and demo the system to him.
- October, 1992
- “*7″, a cross between a PDA and a remote control, is ready. This is demoed to Scott McNealy who is blown away. Following that demo, the Green Project is set up as First Person Inc., a wholly owned Sun subsidiary.
- Early 1993
- The Green Project hears about a Time-Warner request for proposal for a settop box operating system. First Person quickly shifts focus from smart consumer electronics (which is proving to be more hype than reality) to the settop box OS market, and place a bid with Time-Warner. They lose the bid.
- Summer 1993
- NCSA releases the first version of Mosaic.
- Early 1994
- First Person concludes that like smart consumer electronics settop boxes were more hype than reality. Without a market to be seen First Person is rolled back into Sun.However around this time someone realizes that the requirements for smart consumer electronics and settop box software (small, platform independent secure reliable code) are the same requirements for the nascent Web. For a third time the project is redirected, this time at the Web. Patrick Naughton writes a prototype browser called WebRunner in one weekend of inspired hacking.
- Early 1995
- Gosling gives first public talk about Oak at a conference.
- May, 1995
- First alpha version of Java released to the general public.
Java Duke
The Java History Timeline
| 1991 | The Green Project Begins MS DOS is the dominant operating system Cell phones weigh half a pound “Biosphere 2” project begins |
| 1992 | “Oak” is the language *7 Debuts “Duke” is featured in the Interface Johnny Carson signs off “The Tonight Show” on NBC |
| 1993 | The Green Project becomes FirstPerson Mosaic v1.0 is released “Cheers” ends an 11-year run |
| 1994 | WebRunner released — the first browser that supports moving objects and dynamic executable content The Apple QuickTake 100, the first consumer digital camera, goes on sale for less than $1,000 “Friends” debuts on NBC |
| 1995 | Java technology released to a select group on the Web site wicked.neato.org The San Jose Mercury News runs a front-page article about Java technology Name changed from “Oak” to “Java” Announced at Sun World — Java technology is officially born |
| 1996 | The first JavaOne Developer Conference JDKtm 1.0 software is released Chess computer Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov for the first time “Dolly” the first cloned sheep is born |
| 1997 | Over 220,000 downloads of JDK 1.1 software occur in just three weeks JavaOne draws 8,000 attendees, becoming the world’s largest developer conference Java Card 2.0 platform is unveiled 43% of U.S. families own a computer |
| 1998 | JDK 1.1 release downloads top 2 million Visa launches world’s first smart card based on Java Card technology The Java Community Process (JCP) program formalized “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” premieres in the U.K |
| 1999 | Java 2 platform source code is released JavaOne draws 20,000 J2EE beta software is released “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace” released |
| 2000 | Over 400 Java User Groups are established worldwide Java Developer Connection program tops 1.5 million members Steve Jobs joins Scott McNealy on stage at JavaOne to announce a major commitment by Apple in support of Java technology Heavy Metal band Metallica sues Napster for copyright violations |
| 2001 | First international JavaOne conference in Yokohama Japan Over 1 million downloads of the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) SDK Google Inc. PageRank search algorithm patent awarded “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” is released |
| 2002 | J2EE SDK downloads reach 2 million 78% of executives view J2EE technology as the most effective platform for building and deploying Web services The Euro is introduced “The Osbournes” becomes a surprise hit on MTV |
| 2003 | Java technology runs in almost 550 million desktops Almost 75% of professional developers use Java programming language as their primary development language Commercial Voice-Over-Internet (VoiP) phone service begins “The Da Vinci Code” is published |
| 2004 | Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition 5 (Project Tiger) is released The Java technology-powered Mars Rover (Spirit) touches down on Mars Sun Java Studio Creator is launched |
| 2005 | Java technology celebrates its 10th birthday Approximately 4.5 million developers use Java technology Over 2.5 billion Java technology-enabled devices are available java.com bundles the Google Toolbar with the JRE download |
| 2006 | Rich Green announces at the JavaOne 2006 Conference that it’s not a matter of when Sun will open source Java technology, but how. The NetBeans IDE 5.0 is released. Sun open-sourced Java EE components as the Glassfish Project to java.net. Java SE and ME initial components are released as open source. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is released. |
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| This is a snapshot taken at a barbecue that James Gosling threw for some of the folks associated with the Green Team. From left to right they are: Al Frazier, Joe Palrang, Mike Sheridan, Ed Frank, Don Jackson, Faye Baxter, Patrick Naughton, Chris Warth, James Gosling, Bob Weisblatt, David Lavallee, and Jon Payne. Missing in action: Cindy Long, Chuck Clanton, Sheueling Chang, and Craig Forrest. |
Who’s Who
Scott McNealy Chairman & CEO, Sun Microsystems
John Gage Chief Researcher & Director of the Science Office, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
James Gosling Fellow & Chief Technology Officer of Sun’s Developer Products, Green Team original, FirstPerson employee, original member Java Products Group, lead engineer and key architect of Java technology
Bill Joy Cofounder of Sun Microsystems, Inc., principal designer of the University of California, Berkeley, version of the UNIX® operating system, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Eric Schmidt CEO of Google, former Sun Microsystems chief technical officer
Tim Lindholm Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems and a member of the Consumer and Mobile Systems Group. He is the Architect of the Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME, formerly J2ME), a FirstPerson employee, original member Java Products Group
George Paolini Vice President & General Manager, Java Solutions, Borland & former Director of corporate marketing, Sun’s Java Software Division
Amy Fowler Senior Staff Engineer at Sun Microsystems, founding member of the Java Swing GUI Toolkit, FirstPerson employee, original member Java Products Group
Alan E. Baratz, Ph.D CEO and President, NeoPath Networks, and former president of Sun’s Java Software Division
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