Yep, there was also J# an intermediary language so you could run old J++ code on .NET iirc which obviously became defunct sooner rather than later since C# became defacto.
I have yet to meet a C# dev who actually touched J++ or J# to be honest.
My recollection of the reason back then was that running on a VM would make the transition to 64 bits smooth, which at the time was worrying everyone a lot.