Before knowing about the Duke, The Java Mascot let us know about mascot.

What is a Mascot?

A mascot is any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fictional, representative spokespeople for consumer products.

Duke, The Java Mascot

During the development of Java, Sun Microsystem’s’ Green Project created its first working demo, an interactive handheld home entertainment controller called the Star 7. At the heart of the animated touch-screen user interface was a cartoon character named Duke.

The Jumping and Cartwheeling Duke was designed to

  1. Represent a “software agent” that performed tasks for the user.
  2. Interactive host that enabled a new type of user interface that went beyond the buttons, mice, and pop-up menus of the desktop computing world.

Creator of Duke

It was created by one of the Team’s graphic artist Joe Palrang. He went on to work on popular animated movies such as Shrek, Over the Hedge, and Flushed Away. Every year Oracle releases the new Duke Personality.

For the collection of different Duke Personalities go here