A Little History of the World Wide Web
See also How It All
Started presentation materials from the W3C
10th Anniversary Celebration and other
references.
from 1945 to 1995
1945
Vannevar Bush writes an
article in Atlantic
Monthly about a photo-electrical-mechanical device called a Memex, for
memory extension, which could make and follow links between documents on
microfiche
1960s
Doug Engelbart prototypes an "oNLine System" (NLS) which does hypertext
browsing editing, email, and so on. He invents the mouse for this purpose. See
the Bootstrap Institute
library.
Ted Nelson coins the word Hypertext in A File Structure for the
Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate. 20th National Conference,
New York, Association for Computing
Machinery, 1965. See also: Literary Machines. Note: There used to be a link
here to "Hypertext and Hypermedia: A Selected Bibliography" by Terence Harpold,
but the site hosting the resource did not maintain the link.
Andy van Dam and others build the Hypertext Editing System and FRESS in
1967.
1980
While consulting for CERN June-December of 1980, Tim Berners-Lee writes a
notebook program, "Enquire-Within-Upon-Everything", which allows links to be
made between arbitrary nodes. Each node had a title, a type, and a list of
bidirectional typed links. "ENQUIRE" ran on Norsk Data machines under
SINTRAN-III. See: Enquire user manual as
scanned images or as HTML
page(alt).
1989
- March
- "Information Management: A
Proposal" written by Tim BL and
circulated for comments at CERN (TBL).
Paper "HyperText and CERN" produced as background (text or WriteNow format).
- May
- Same proposal recirculated
- September
- Mike Sendall, Tim's boss, Oks the purchase of a NeXT cube, and allows
Tim to go ahead and write a global hypertext system.
- October
- Tim starts work on a hypertext GUI browser+editor using the NeXTStep
development environment. He makes up "WorldWideWeb" as a name for the
program. (See the first
browser screenshot) "World Wide Web" as a name for the project (over
Information Mesh, Mine of Information, and Information Mine).
- Project original proposal
reformulated with encouragement from CN and ECP divisional management.
Robert Cailliau (ECP) joins and is
co-author of new version.
- November
- Initial WorldWideWeb
program development continues on the NeXT (TBL) . This was a "what you see is what
you get" (wysiwyg) browser/editor with direct inline creation of links.
The first web server was nxoc01.cern.ch, later called info.cern.ch, and
the first web page
http://nxoc01.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html Unfortunately CERN no
longer supports the historical site. Note from this era too, the least recently
modified web page we know of, last changed Tue, 13 Nov 1990 15:17:00
GMT (though the URI changed.)
- November
- Technical Student Nicola Pellow (CN)
joins and starts work on the line-mode browser. Bernd Pollermann (CN) helps get interface to
CERNVM "FIND" index running. TBL gives a colloquium on hypertext in
general.
- Christmas
- Line mode browser and WorldWideWeb
browser/editor demonstrable. Acces is possible to hypertext files, CERNVM
"FIND", and Internet news articles.
1991
- February
- workplan for the purposes of ECP
division.
- 26 February 1991
- Presentation of the project to the
ECP/PT group.
- March
- Line mode browser (www) released to limited audience on "priam" vax,
rs6000, sun4.
- May
- Workplan produced for
CN/AS group
- 17 May
- Presentation to "C5" Committee.
General release of WWW on central CERN machines.
- 12 June
- CERN Computer Seminar on
WWW.
- August
- Files available on the net by FTP, posted on
alt.hypertext (6,
16, 19th Aug),
comp.sys.next (20th), comp.text.sgml and comp.mail.multi-media (22nd).
Jean-Francois Groff joins the
project.
- October
- VMS/HELP and WAIS gateways installed. Mailing lists www-interest (now
www-announce) and www-talk@info.cern.ch (see archive)
started. One year status report. Anonymous telnet service started.
- December
- Presented poster and demonstration at Hypertext'91 in San Antonio,
Texas (US). W3 browser installed on VM/CMS. CERN computer newsletter announces W3
to the HEP world.
Dec 12: Paul Kunz installs first Web server outside of Europe, at
SLAC.
1992
- 15 January
- Line mode browser release 1.1 available by anonymous FTP (see news). Presentation to AIHEP'92 at La Londe
(FR).
- 12 February
- Line mode v 1.2 annouced on alt.hypertext, comp.infosystems,
comp.mail.multi-media, cern.sting, comp.archives.admin, and mailing
lists.
- April
- 29th April: Release of Finnish "Erwise" GUI client for X
mentioned in review
by TimBL.
- May
- Pei Wei's "Viola" GUI browser for X test version dated May 15.
(See review
by TimBL)
At CERN, Presentation and demo at JENC3, Innsbruck (AT).
Technical Student Carl Barker (ECP) joins
the project.
- June
- Presentation and demo at HEPVM (Lyon). People at FNAL (Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory (US)), NIKHEF (Nationaal Instituut voor Kern- en
Hoge Energie Fysika, (NL)), DESY (Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron,
Hamburg, (DE)) join with WWW servers.
- July
- Distribution of WWW through CernLib, including Viola. WWW library code
ported to DECnet. Report to the Advisory Board on Computing.
- August
- Introduction of CVS for code management at
CERN.
- September
- Plenary session demonstration to the HEP community at CHEP'92 in Annecy
(FR).
- November
- Jump back in time to a snapshot of the WWW
Project Page as of 3 Nov 1992 and the WWW project web of the time,
including the list of all 26 resoanably reliable servers,
NCSA's having just been added, but no sign of Mosaic.
1993
- January
- By now, Midas (Tony Johnson, SLAC), Erwise (HUT), and Viola (Pei Wei,
O'Reilly Associates) browsers are available for X; CERN Mac browser (ECP)
released as alpha. Around 50 known HTTP servers.
- February
- NCSA release first alpha version of Marc Andreessen's "Mosaic for X".
Computing seminar at CERN.
The University of Minnesota announced
that they would begin to charge licensing fees for Gopher's use, which
caused many volunteers and employees to stop using it and switch to
WWW.
- March
- WWW (Port 80 HTTP) traffic measures 0.1% of NSF backbone traffic. WWW
presented at Online
Publishing 93, Pittsburgh.
The Acceptable Use Policy prohibiting commercial use of the Internet
re-interpreted.,
so that it becomes becomes allowed.
- April
- April 30: Date on the declaration by CERN's directors that WWW
technology would be freely usable by anyone, with no fees being payable
to CERN. A milestone document.
- July
- Ari Luotonen (ECP) joins the project at CERN. He implements access
authorisation, proceeds to re-write the CERN httpd server.
- July 28-30
- O'Reilly hosts first WWW Wizards
Workshop in Cambridge Mass (US).
- September
- WWW (Port 80 http) traffic measures 1% of NSF backbone traffic. NCSA
releases working versions of Mosaic browser for all common platforms: X,
PC/Windows and Macintosh.
September 6-10: On a bus at a seminar
Information at Newcastle University, MIT's Prof. David
Gifford suggests Tim BL contact Michael Dertouzos of MIT/LCS as a
possible consortium host site.
- October
- Over 200 known HTTP servers. The European Commission, the Fraunhofer
Gesellschaft and CERN start the first Web-based project of the European
Union (DG XIII): WISE, using the Web for dissemination of technological
information to Europe's less favoured regions.
- December
- WWW receives IMA award. John Markov writes a page and a half on WWW and
Mosaic in "The New York Times" (US) business section. "The Guardian" (UK)
publishes a page on WWW, "The Economist" (UK) analyses the Internet and
WWW.
Robert Cailliau gets go-ahead from CERN management to organise the First
International WWW Conference at CERN.
1994
- January
- O'Reilly, Spry, etc announce "Internet in a box" product to bring the
Web into homes.
- March
- Marc Andreessen and colleagues leave NCSA to form "Mosaic
Communications Corp" (later Netscape).
- May 25-27
- First International WWW
Conference, CERN, Geneva. Heavily oversubscribed (800 apply, 400
allowed in): the "Woodstock of the Web". VRML is conceived here. TBL's
closing keynote hints at upcoming organization. (Some of Tim's slides on Semantic Web)
- June
- M. Bangemann report
on European Commission Information Superhighway plan. Over 1500
registered servers.
Load on the first Web server (info.cern.ch) 1000 times what it has
been 3 years earlier.
- July
- MIT/CERN agreement to start W3 Organisation is announced by Bangemann
in Boston. MIT press release. Reports in Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe etc.
- August
- Founding of the IW3C2: the International
WWW Conference Committee, in Boston, by NCSA and CERN.
- September
- The European Commission and CERN propose the WebCore project for
development of the Web core technology in Europe.
- 1 October
- World Wide Web Consortium founded.
- October
- Second International WWW Conference:
"Mosaic and the Web", Chicago. Also heavily oversubscribed: 2000 apply,
1300 allowed in.
- 14 December
- First W3 Consortium
Meeting at M.I.T. in Cambridge (USA).
- 15 December
- First meeting with European Industry and the European Consortium
branch, at the European
Commission, Brussels.
- 16 December
- CERN Council approves unanimously the construction of the LHC (Large Hadron
Collider) accelerator, CERN's next machine and competitor to the US'
already defunct SSC (Superconducting Supercollider). Stringent budget
conditions are however imposed. CERN thus decides not to continue WWW
development, and in concertation with the European Commission and INRIA (the Institut National pour la
Recherche en Informatique et Automatique, FR) transfers the WebCore
project to INRIA.
1995
- February
- the Web is the main reason for the theme of the G7 meeting hosted by
the European Commission in the European Parliament buildings in Brussels
(BE).
- March
- CERN holds a two-day seminar for the
European Media (press, radio, TV), attended by 250 reporters, to show
WWW. It is demonstrated on 60 machines, with 30 pupils from the local
International High School helping the reporters "surf the Web".
- April
- Third International WWW Conference: "Tools
and Applications", hosted by the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, in
Darmstadt (DE)
- June
- Founding of the Web Society in Graz
(AT), by the Technical University of Graz (home of Hyper-G), CERN, the
University of Minnesota (home of Gopher) and INRIA.
See also:
Dan Connolly, 2000
Webmaster
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$Revision: 1.56 $ of $Date: 2016/03/08 15:42:58 $
created circa 1995 by Robert Cailliau