Late 1990s PCs were not that powerful or had that much memory.The Java runtime was initially integrated with Netscape, the most popular browser in the late 1990s (anyone else remember having to pay for a browser?) There were a number of reasons that prevented Applets from achieving the potential they initially suggested:
(Of course, it would have been great to include it embedded in the blog webpage but, as we’ll see that wasn’t going to work).Īs history has shown, that first Eureka demonstration did not lead to a situation today where all web-based applications use Java. Having recompiled the source files with JDK 8 the applets ran happily using good old appletviewer.
(Very early compiled code from JDK1.0prebeta1 does not always set the maxlocals value correctly, resulting in a ClassFormatError). I switched to JDK 8 and was reminded that not all classes compiled with JDK 1.0 will run on a JDK 8 JVM due to a security fix introduced in JDK 1.1.2. java_wrapper (remember that?) it turns out the libc is way to modern and the java executable just gave a segmentation violation. In order to run the applets I initially tried using JDK 1.2.2 on a Linux machine but that wouldn’t run because my machine was 64-bit and JDK 1.2 did not understand an architecture name of x86_64.
(I had planned to install all of the CD software but the system requirements are “Any SPARCstation with Solaris 2.4 or later”, which I don’t have). In addition to having a copy of Netscape 2.0 and JDK 1.0 the CD also has various Applets, including the MoleculeViewer.
Included in the picture is my copy of “HELLO WORLD(S)!” from which I drew details of John and James’ demo. And all thanks to an Applet.īeing a collector of arcane technology and related things, I still have my first Java CD from when I joined Sun in 1996. The entire audience, who had not really being paying much attention up to this point, went Aaaah! The web as we know it today, with all its interactivity, was born. He moved the cursor over a colour 3D molecule image in the browser, clicked on it, and rotated the molecule back and forth. James Gosling went with John to handle the demo. This included new technology that would, “bring the static Web to life”.
The demonstration he planned was of a new web browser called WebRunner (the name being derived from Blade Runner). In early 1995, John Gage, Director of Sun Microsystems’ Science Office was heading to Monterey to do a presentation at the TED conference. If you go all the way back to when Java was being developed, it was an Applet that caught everyone’s attention. I recently noticed that Applets are now, to use a Monty Python analogy, the Norwegian Blue of client-side development.