The primary GUI toolkit for the Java framework. The idea is very simple and smart, on the whole -- the JVM will, instead of supplying it's own GUI controls, simply transalate object references into the host system's own widgets. Meaning that if my AWT based Java App says 'put a button here', the JVM doesn't use it's own button, but instead asks the OS to draw what it uses as a button here. This system allows for very compact and fast(er) code, but also suffers because not all controls are implimented with the same properties across all platforms, etc. Contrast this with Swing/JFC.