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It was part of the Oracle-led Network Computer project, the main thing ported to it was the JVM, to run Java business apps. IBM also sold them (IBM Network Stat
by skissane 1y ago
It was part of the Oracle-led Network Computer project, the main thing ported to it was the JVM, to run Java business apps. IBM also sold them (IBM Network Station), and Sun - although I believe Sun Network Computers ran JavaOS not NCOS, but still used ARM CPUs
- jacquesm 1y agoThat is such a bit of neat lore. Thank you.
- xyzzy3000 1y agoThe various Sun 'JavaStation' NC models retain the SPARC CPUs of their workstation line - they definitely do not use ARM. JavaOS was in ROM, on a module that can be removed (SIMM-style form factor). At one point people started to use BOOTP to run Linux compiled for SPARC as a replacement, as JavaOS was unpleasantly slow on JavaStation hardware.
- skissane 1y agoThanks, I stand corrected about the CPU So Sun Network Computers were JavaOS on SPARC, Oracle were NCOS (Acorn RiscOS derivative) on ARM – and I think IBM's had a similar tech stack to Oracle's... were there any others?
- skissane 1y agoCorrecting myself: IBM Network Station used PPC And although its OS was called “NCOS”, it was completely different from Oracle’s NCOS. It was apparently a closed source derivative of NetBSD