I was running OS/2 on a PC hoping that the promise of Write Once Run Anywhere meant we didn't all have to run Windows 98 on our PCs. I remember Lotus wrote an entire Java version of their SmartSuite that had the potential to replace Microsoft Office. Too bad Java was so dogshit slow, launching the Java Lotus Word Pro took ages, hard drive thrashing like a blender until you forgot why you clicked on it and what you wanted to write.
The promises of those slim network clients that were Java workstations just never seemed to pan out. That's what I'll always remember Java as, something that was supposed to save us from Windows.
Instead we got a bunch of Web games that ran slower than Flash, then they went and named something JavaScript that wasn't even the same language and 20-odd years later it's something that runs pretty much on corporate Linux VMs for corporate stuff.