---
title: "Which came first, Java or Mario?"
description: "Java vs Mario: Mario came first, by 14 years — 1981 against 1995. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/java-vs-super-mario/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Java or Mario?

**Which came first, Java or Mario?: Mario**

1981 — 14 years before Java

Mario came first, by 14 years. Mario debuted as "Jumpman" in the arcade game Donkey Kong.

## Side by side

|  | Java | Mario |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1995 | 1981 |
| Date | 1995-05-23 | — |
| Category | technology | media |
| What happened | Sun Microsystems announced Java publicly. | Mario debuted as "Jumpman" in the arcade game Donkey Kong. |

## Java

Java was announced in May 1995, having started in 1991 as a project called Oak aimed at interactive television — a market that did not exist yet. Its promise was "write once, run anywhere", achieved by compiling to bytecode for a virtual machine rather than to a specific processor. JavaScript arrived seven months later and was named after it purely as a marketing decision; the two languages are unrelated.

## Mario

Mario first appeared in Donkey Kong in 1981, credited as Jumpman, four years before Super Mario Bros. of 1985 made him a household name. He wears a cap because animating hair at that resolution was impossible, and dungarees because they made his arm movements legible against his body — the design is entirely a consequence of an 16×16 pixel sprite.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Java or Mario?

Mario, by 14 years — 1981 against 1995.

### When did Java start?

1995. Sun Microsystems announced Java publicly.

### When did Mario start?

1981. Mario debuted as "Jumpman" in the arcade game Donkey Kong.

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- [Java or Windows?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/java-vs-windows/)

## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]