Are the early versions of the Java Language Specification and VM specification available online?
java, jls
Solution
If you are still interested - I just had the same problem and found the old specs using the waybackmachine , for instance, the JLS 1st edition is here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20041208124545/http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/first_edition/html/index.html
Downloading the PDF versions failed, but I can display the online HTML versions.
Problem
Oracle has the latest versions of the java specs at http://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/ but I was unable to find the older versions. Are these archived anywhere?