WARNING: For Archival/Historical Interest
-- The following document dates from 1995 and has not been updated. The history
is of course still valid though not up to date. Some links may not
work.
A Little History of the World Wide Web
See also a very short history of hypertext
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 betwen arbitrary nodes. Each node had a title, a type, and a list
of bidirectional typed links. "ENQUIRE" run on Norsk Data machines under
SINTRAN-III.
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).
1990
-
May
-
Same proposal recirculated
-
October
-
Project proposal reformulated with encouragement
from CN and ECP divisional management. Robert
Cailliau (ECP) is co-author. Tim picks
World Wide Web as a name for the project (over Information Mesh, Mine of
Information, and Information Mine).
-
November
-
Initial WorldWideWeb program developed on the NeXT
(TBL) . This was a wysiwyg browser/editor
with direct inline creation of links.
-
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 NeXTStep 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 First US server at SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory).
-
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, 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 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.
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
-
March
-
WWW (Port 80 HTTP) traffic measures 0.1% of NSF backbone traffic. WWW presented
at Online Publishing 93,
Pittsburgh.
-
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.
-
August
-
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.
-
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" (now 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.
-
June
-
M. Bangemann report on
European Commission Information Superhighway plan. Over 1500 registered servers.
-
July
-
MIT/CERN agreement to start W3 Organisation is announced by Bangemann in
Boston.
Press release.
AP wire. 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.
-
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.
.
Robert Cailliau
Webmaster
Last updated 03 October 1995