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August 6th, 1991 - WWW invented, first webpage

Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 9:34 am
by totalmotorcycle
August 6th, 1991 - WWW invented, first webpage

..and here it is (all text)
The WorldWideWeb (WWW) project aims to allow links to be made to any
information anywhere. The address format includes an access method
(=namespace), and for most name spaces a hostname and some sort of path.

We have a prototype hypertext editor for the NeXT, and a browser for line mode
terminals which runs on almost anything. These can access files either locally,
NFS mounted, or via anonymous FTP. They can also go out using a simple protocol
(HTTP) to a server which interprets some other data and returns equivalent
hypertext files. For example, we have a server running on our mainframe
(http://cernvm.cern.ch/FIND in WWW syntax) which makes all the CERN computer
center documentation available. The HTTP protocol allows for a keyword search
on an index, which generates a list of matching documents as annother virtual
hypertext document.

If you're interested in using the code, mail me. It's very prototype, but
available by anonymous FTP from info.cern.ch. It's copyright CERN but free
distribution and use is not normally a problem.

The NeXTstep editor can also browse news. If you are using it to read this,
then click on this: <http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html> to find
out more about the project. We haven't put the news access into the line mode
browser yet.

We also have code for a hypertext server. You can use this to make files
available (like anonymous FTP but faster because it only uses one connection).
You can also hack it to take a hypertext address and generate a virtual
hypertext document from any other data you have - database, live data etc. It's
just a question of generating plain text or SGML (ugh! but standard) mark-up on
the fly. The browsers then parse it on the fly.

The WWW project was started to allow high energy physicists to share data,
news, and documentation. We are very interested in spreading the web to other
areas, and having gateway servers for other data. Collaborators welcome! I'll
post a short summary as a separate article.
Why is this important at all? I donno, I was watching Futurama and the date came up for "When was the internet about taking personal data and selling it"... Aparently, it was August 6th, 1991...

On a side note, I had a pubilc webpage up for people to visit LONG BEFORE 1991... It was in 1983-5, a full 8 years before this! Thanks to a Commodore 64c, a 5 1/4" FDD and a 300 baud pocket modem with good ol' phone lines. You might laugh at it but it was called "The Emerald Sword" and was a RPG board with 1500 members! 300 baud was a little slow but it worked fine for ASCII charaters and was in colour as well! haha. Goes to show the internet started way before 1991 as claimed. BTW, I didn't start the internet...but I would say I was one of the early webmasters of it. haha

Image

Mike

Re: August 6th, 1991 - WWW invented, first webpage

Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 12:35 pm
by dr_bar
Wiki gives a much earlier date than '91 as well...


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

Re: August 6th, 1991 - WWW invented, first webpage

Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 12:37 pm
by Wrider
Soooo you're not Al Gore??? lol
That's pretty cool. I first started using the internet in the late 90s, so it was well on its' development path by then.

Re: August 6th, 1991 - WWW invented, first webpage

Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 4:10 pm
by pchast
We were connecting from home in the early 80's to bulletin boards with a Radio Shack 4K Color Computer that had a tape drive and a 300 baud modem. Within a year I had upgraded it by a hardware hack to 16K memory....

Re: August 6th, 1991 - WWW invented, first webpage

Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 2:13 am
by HYPERR
dr_bar wrote:Wiki gives a much earlier date than '91 as well...


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet
The world wide web was created in 1991. Mike's article is talking about the world wide web, not the internet.

The internet has been around since the 1960s, but the world wide web was created in 1991. The world wide web forever changed the way the world uses the internet.

Re: August 6th, 1991 - WWW invented, first webpage

Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 12:00 pm
by ceemes
I remember using a then blindingly fast 14.4 baud modem to access local bulletin boards and usernet back in the late 80's and early 90's. Weird how fast HTML and the WWW caught on though.....invented in '91 and by the time I was at BCIT in '93, it was already fairly big.....