It's hard to imagine the world without WWW. but in the 1980s that's just how it was. The basis for the Internet had been invented in the 1960s and was up and running by the end of that decade - this was ARPANET, developed by the USA's Department of Defence.During the 1980s, the home computing era got underway, but it was the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989 which would transform attitudes to computers in the 1990s and create a whole new way of life. Have you checked your e-mails? Updated your web site/blog? Checked Wikipedia's latest suspect information? No? Well, better get to it. It's as easy as shelling peas.
This is thanks to an English software engineer, Tim Berners-Lee. The origins of the idea for the Web can be traced back to June - December 1980, when Mr Berners-Lee wrote ENQUIRE, his first computer program for storing information. At this time he was working a six month stint as a consultant software engineer at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland.
He left CERN for a spell, returning in 1984, and in March 1989 invented the World Wide Web.
From Tim Berners-Lee's own site biography:
Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989.
He is the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a Web standards organization founded in 1994 which develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential. He is a Director of the World Wide Web Foundation which was launched in 2009 to coordinate efforts to further the potential of the Web to benefit humanity.
A graduate of Oxford University, Sir Tim invented the Web while at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, in 1989. He wrote the first web client and server in 1990. His specifications of URIs, HTTP and HTML were refined as Web technology spread.
Click on the red text to go to Sir Tim's site.
Up and running in the early 1990s, the Web made the Internet easy for all and things would never be the same again.
And even confirmed technophobes like me, who had looked at the emerging home computer era with trepidation back in the 1980s, are now happily surfing the Web.
Thank you, Sir Tim!
March 1989 - the historic document!
Tim Berners-Lee at the www@20 celebration at CERN, 13 March, 2009.
Just imagine - without that 1989 invention document NONE of it would have happened!
ReplyDeleteI never knew the inventor of the internet was english. Cool!
ReplyDeleteIn 1989 Dad was one of 1500 private users on GEOS web using the Commodore 64 which had their own BBS with a SYSOP.
ReplyDeleteWe lived in Paradise Northern California and Dad knew someone who had a huge server in his garage with dozens of cables and modems hooked up to the phone line.
We actually visited his house but I was only 5 years old so didn't fully appreciate it yet though I was an avid Commodore user knowing basic navigation and commands. :)
Back then the internet dialed thru the phone and usually you had to pay money by the minute though I don't remember the pricing.
To go on this website I would be paying for each minute I was browsing back in the early 90s.