Sun + Microsoft Bob = Java mascot

[Rhetorica]

Java programmers of a certain age will be familiar with this rancid gnome:

He is called "Duke," and his name (sort of) lives on as a legacy moniker for the Oracle Excellence Awards (note the subdomain.) For a while he was popular as Java's mascot, featured and pushed heavily by Sun in marketing materials during the 90s.

But, as with most things in life, the truth is somehow worse. Duke originated as the agent character on a prototype Sun gadget called the Star7, which falls right into the same "here, dumbass, have a virtual house inside your computer" niche as Microsoft Bob and General Magic's Magic Cap. His creator went on to do some of the lighting work on Shrek. (True story.)

I'll let James Gosling himself explain the rest of it:

Of course, the true winners here are diehard Sun zealots, who can now claim that Sun was so far ahead of Microsoft they even beat MS to the "ridiculous novelty blunders for children" market, in part by having the gormfulness to not actually release it.

[Protocol 7]

I hadn't seen that video, but *7 popped up in a couple of tiny pictures in this article covering the early days of Java.

https://web.archive.org/web/19990223195009/http://java.sun.com/features/1998/05/birthday.html