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

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xyzzy3000 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The 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.

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skissane 2 days ago | parent [-]

Thanks, 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 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Correcting 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

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jacquesm 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

That is such a bit of neat lore. Thank you.