50-year Oral History of the Internet III. Web

This is the third part of the 50-year Oral History of the Internet. It tells the birth of the Web and the birth of the first browser mosaic. Finally, it tells how Netscape created the Internet boom for 90 years. For other chapters in this series, see the first and second sections of the 50-year Oral History of the Internet.

In 1991, CERN, the world's largest physical laboratory in Geneva, brought world wide web, a document link system to the world, invented by Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist, and his Belgian colleague Robert cailliau, this dynamic global information resource brings the possibility of browser invention. The first browser was mosaic, invented by Marc Andreessen, a student at Illinois University. Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, noted the invention and created Netscape with Andreessen.

Robert cailliau:

The Web is actually composed of three parts: hypertext, PC, and network. We have networks and PCs, but they are not very useful, because people don't know what they can do, except playing games occasionally. What is hyper text? It is a method that brings a deep structure to the text. As we know now, links are some texts with blue underscores. You can click and enter other places, this is the simplest definition of hypertext.

Lawrence H. landweber, an Honorary Professor of computing science at Wisconsin University, founded csnet in 1979 and linked the university without ARPANET.

Lawrence landweber:

What do people do with the Internet? They use e-mail to transfer files, but until 93 years, there are still no killer apps that really attract users. I am referring to those in non-technical colleges and non-academic activities. World Wide Web turns the Internet into a huge, never-before knowledge base. Suddenly, people can view weather forecasts or stock prices on the Internet, and suddenly we have a lot of valuable things.

Robert cailliau:

For a few weeks in a row, we wanted to name this invention, but we couldn't think of it. Finally, Tim said, simply call it wordl wide web.

At that time, CERN was preparing to apply for a patent for the World Wide Web. One day, I talked to time about this. I can see that Tim was not enthusiastic about this. He said, Robert, do you want to make a fortune? I am a little tempted, but he does not seem to care about this. He cares about the fact that this invention is really useful and can be used by everyone. He tried to convince me that I had done a lot in the next six months to make sure CERN made everything open to the public.

Marc Andreessen:

Mosaic was developed at Illinois University. I didn't graduate yet, but I am a member of the National supercomputer Application Center. When Al Gore says he created the Internet, he means that he created the four national supercomputing centers.

Mosaic is a secondary project that I and my colleagues worked on in their spare time. We did this for several reasons: first, the formal project we were engaged in was not promising. Second, all interesting things happen on the Internet. Therefore, we say to ourselves that if more and more people are connected to the Internet, even if they only want to send and receive emails, if all their PCs are graphic, we will have a world of PCs connected to a large number of graphical interfaces. We should develop a program so that people can access the world through the graphic interface.

Now, there was no such thing as an amazing idea, but at that time, it was a very creative idea. When we started the Mosaic project during the Christmas holiday of June 1992, I went out at a.m. and went to 7-eleven to buy some food. I saw the line account on the shelf and I bought it. There are all sci-fi novels, and the Internet has not been mentioned, even in Wired Magazine.

Sky Dayton:

I was in l.a. having several coffee houses and running a computer graphics company with others, I heard the word "Internet". I think it sounds interesting, the first thing I did was pick up the phone and dial 411. I said, please help me check the internet number. What did the operator say? I said, please help me check the companies whose names contain the internet, and I didn't find any results. I think, this is very interesting. What is Internet?

Jim Clark:

I 've been working on Silicon Graphics for a long time and wanted to create a competitive computer company, but it turned out frustrated. So, at the beginning of 94, I resigned and left the board of Silicon Graphics and gave up a $10 million option. On the day I resigned, I met Marc Andreessen.

At first, what the Internet touched me most was that the Internet would change the newspaper industry, the classified advertisement business, and the singing industry. So I found Rolling Stone magazine and Times Mirror and Time Warner. We showed them how to play music and buy a recording or CD over the Internet. We also demonstrated some shopping programs that we want the newspaper to see what they will face.

Jann Wenner:

Jim and Marc have designed a demo program. I have never seen any hyperlink before, and others have never seen it. It's amazing. You can click on these blue And Underlined texts, all of a sudden, I came to a new place. So I said, this is wonderful. I understand, but I don't want to spend money to build this website. We don't have the technology, let alone the money. But I am willing to invest, and I actually sent them a check, but they returned the check. They said that if you don't want to build a website, we don't want your money.

Lou montulli is a developer of the early browser lynx and one of the founding engineers of Netscape. Later, he founded epinions.com (shopping.com) and created memory matrix together with others.

Lou montulli:

Jim has a talent to convince you of many things. He filled our minds with the idea of transforming the world and convinced us that we could make a solid profit.

At the beginning, of course, Microsoft has not yet joined the competition. Therefore, Netscape quickly occupied the entire browser market. It took me a year to grow from zero market share to 80%, but the first time I saw HTTP on TV's prime time advertisement, I realized the impact we had on the world. A year ago, no one had heard of this. Now we can see URLs everywhere on prime time ads.

Jim Clark:

Sometimes, you know, you just met the right time. Once the public knows that everyone has a new idea, we basically created a boom in technology stocks in 1990s and almost lost control.

Vint Cerf:

Suddenly, the genie was removed from the bottle.

 

Http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/07/internet200807? Currentpage = 4
Source: comsharp CMS official website

Coming soon: the 50-year Oral browser war on the Internet.