Before I rebooted my system [rather, it rebooted
itself after a panic], the following sequence
would reliably cause the killme thread to become
a zombie -- it was deadlocked waiting in some
monitor. (I'd include the fascinating results of
the threads command, but they got blown away
by the panic.)

yojimbo% appletviewer -debug index.html
Loading jdb ...
0xee301818:class(sun.applet.AppletViewer)
> stop in NervousText.start
Breakpoint set at NervousText.start
> run
run sun.applet.AppletViewer index.html
running ...
Breakpoint hit: NervousText.start (NervousText.java:35)
Thread-6[1] list
31 resize(150,50);
32 }
33
34 public void start() {
35 => if(killme == null)
36 {
37 killme = new Thread(this, "killme");
38 killme.start();
39 }
Thread-6[1] stop at NervousText:38
Breakpoint set at NervousText:38
Thread-6[1] cont
Breakpoint hit: NervousText.start (NervousText.java:38)
Thread-6[1] cont
Thread-6[1]

If before the second cont I put a step,
then everything would work fine.

Now, after rebooting, everything works fine.
OOPS -- JUST THE FIRST TIME. Doing the same
sequence again, I'm running into the same problem.

Here's the output:

appletviewer -debug index.html
Loading jdb ...
0xee301bb8:class(sun.applet.AppletViewer)
> stop in NervousText.start
Breakpoint set at NervousText.start
> run
run sun.applet.AppletViewer index.html
running ...
Breakpoint hit: NervousText.start (NervousText.java:35)
Thread-6[1] stop at NervousText:38
Breakpoint set at NervousText:38
Thread-6[1] cont
Breakpoint hit: NervousText.start (NervousText.java:38)
Thread-6[1] threads
Group sun.applet.AppletViewer.main:
 1. (java.lang.Thread)0xee303ba8 AWT-Motif suspended
 2. (sun.awt.ScreenUpdater)0xee304010 ScreenUpdater suspended
Group applet-NervousText.class:
 3. (java.lang.Thread)0xee304078 Thread-6 at breakpoint
 4. (java.lang.Thread)0xee305e08 killme zombie
Thread-6[1] cont
Thread-6[1] threads
Group sun.applet.AppletViewer.main:
 1. (java.lang.Thread)0xee303ba8 AWT-Motif running
 2. (sun.awt.ScreenUpdater)0xee304010 ScreenUpdater cond. waiting
Group applet-NervousText.class:
 3. (java.lang.Thread)0xee304078 Thread-6 waiting in a monitor
 4. (java.lang.Thread)0xee305e08 killme zombie
Thread-6[1] cont
Thread-6[1] threads
Group sun.applet.AppletViewer.main:
 1. (java.lang.Thread)0xee303ba8 AWT-Motif running
 2. (sun.awt.ScreenUpdater)0xee304010 ScreenUpdater cond. waiting
Group applet-NervousText.class:
 3. (java.lang.Thread)0xee304078 Thread-6 waiting in a monitor
 4. (java.lang.Thread)0xee305e08 killme zombie
Thread-6[1]

Obviously, there's some sort of timing problem, but I
have no idea of what it is.