Star Seven

The Star Seven (in the original: * 7 ) was a portable microcomputer developed as part of the “Green Project” at Sun Microsystems , which was intended to be used to control household appliances. After its internal presentation in autumn 1992, the company First Person, Inc. was founded, which should take over the marketing. However, the device never came on the market.

history

Patrick Naughton started The Green Project in December 1990 , which was originally intended to develop software for interactive television and other consumer electronics devices. James Gosling and Mike Sheridan were also involved. In August 1991, the Oak interpreter developed by Gosling (which was later renamed " Java ") executed the first programs on the operating system called "Green OS", and Bill Joy had started to implement a graphical user interface. A specially developed, portable microcomputer - the * 7 - served as the platform .

In autumn 1992, the overall concept was presented internally at Sun Microsystems. Sun CEO Scott McNealy was so impressed by the results that a separate company was founded to market Star Seven - First Person, Inc. was born. The company underwent several changes of direction, including in the direction of set-top boxes, the Star Seven never came on the market. Hardware was already considered obsolete in 1994, and the most promising components (Java) were further developed into independent products. In 1996 at the latest, when the remaining members of the Green team founded the JavaSoft company, the Star Seven was finally off the table.

Technical specifications

The system included the Green-OS operating system, the Oak interpreter (later Java ) and some hardware components. The user interacted with the system via a graphical user interface that guided through the dialogs with the help of wizards. One of these assistants was Duke, who today finds himself as the mascot of Java.