First program by Tim Berners-Lee that attempted to link bits of data:
—Enquire, 1980, for Berners-Lee's personal use as a software consultant at CERN; he later left and the code was lost

Second program:
—Tangle, 1984, when Berners-Lee returned, to help him keep track of CERN's many scientists, projects and incompatible computers

Early names for the Web:
—Information Mesh, Mine of Information, The Information Mine (But Berners-Lee thought the acronym, TIM, was too egocentric!)

Computer the Web code was written on, and Web browser was designed on:
—NeXT, by NeXT, Inc., founded by Steve Jobs, who had started Apple Computer earlier and returned to it later

Programming language used:
—C

Time taken to write the code:
—Three months

First Web browser:
—Called WorldWideWeb; it could edit Web pages as well as access them; it worked only on the NeXT platform

First server address:
—nxoc01.cern.ch (NeXT, Online Controls, 1), with an alias of info.cern.ch

First full demonstration:
—Christmas Day 1990, operating over the Internet from Berners-Lee's NeXT machine to the NeXT computer of his office partner and now Web co-developer, Robert Cailliau

Content of first Web page:
—The CERN phone directory

First U.S. Web server:
—April 1991, hosted by the Stanford University Linear Accelerator lab

Hits (pages viewed) on the info.cern.ch server:
  August 1991: 100 a day
  August 1992: 1,000 a day
  August 1993: 10,000 a day

First Web browsers:
—WorldWideWeb, December 1990, for the NeXT platform, by Berners-Lee
—Erwise, April 1992, for Unix, by students at Helsinki University of Technology
—Viola, May 1992, for Unix, by student Pei Wei at the University of California, Berkeley
—Samba, summer 1992, for Macintosh, by Robert Cailliau at CERN, finished by intern Nicola Pellow

Notable early servers that showed the Web's complex capabilities:
—1992, virtual museum of objects in the Vatican, by programmer Frans van Hoesel
—1992, virtual geographic maps, with pan and zoom, by Steve Putz at Xerox PARC

10 Comments

1. 1. BuckSkinMan 10:28 PM 3/13/09

   If they aren't already, Tim Berners-Lee and Steve Jobs should be in every high school American History book.
   
   This happens also to be my tenth anniversary as a computer & Web user. My first computer was an early Macintosh (SE), my second, purchased at a yard sale, was the Apple (Performa) LC II. So, in 1999, I was using the 1993 Performa. I started as an AOL subscriber. All this time, I've read bits and pieces of this story (the Web and the Mac and NeXT), now I think I have the more complete story - and it's even more amazing.
   
   Maybe I should add: I no longer have to go to the newsstand or library to get a copy of Scientific American - another reason to thank Berners-Lee and Jobs. Recursively, we should also be thankful to SciAm for reporting on such historic achievements .

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2. 2. Quinn the Eskimo 01:11 AM 3/15/09

   I think this "web" thing won't catch on. Computers will never replace the family at diner!
   
   If it did, things like newspaper--which we *all* read daily--would be at terrible danger.
   
   So, as far as this "web" thing goes, I think we're safe. Unlike Global Warming.

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3. 3. BuckSkinMan in reply to Quinn the Eskimo 05:15 AM 3/15/09

   Quinn,
   Yeah, and those stories about Gates and Jobs becoming wealthier than God are just urban legends.
   
   Of course, I'm sure you've noticed, the Web has created one bane to Mankind: people who send out email but cannot think or write have come to consider themselves "published writers." And dare I mention the "S" word?
   ;-)

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4. 4. dog1 06:42 PM 3/18/09

   I'm on the internet

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5. 5. agenthucky 01:26 PM 3/19/09

   Wait, so how do i subscribe to this internet thing...sounds useful, I should give it a try

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6. 6. eco-steve 05:49 PM 3/19/09

   I thought the first internet program used 'hypertext', being much older.

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7. 7. jtdwyer 03:04 PM 12/28/09

   I am not a historian, scholar or researcher, but I was programming computers in the mid-1970s. My earliest recollection of ARPAnet was that it was funded by the U.S. Dept. of Advanced Research Projects to facilitate collaboration among contractors at a number of U.S. universities working on Defense Dept. funded research projects. I had no direct involvement, but it certainly did not have any of the tools necessary to search databases or format web pages. However, I believe it did provide the fundamental messaging network infrastructure that led to the development of the current internet/www. It seems to me that this CERN-centric view of www history is more self-serving than historically correct…

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8. 8. vestrova 02:34 PM 1/14/10

   i need info 4 a report speech

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9. 9. vestrova 02:34 PM 1/14/10

   i need info 4 a speech

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10. 10. vestrova 02:35 PM 1/14/10

    this is intereesting

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