"The WWW was created to bring together the different technologies of computers, various data, networks, and hypertext to create a powerful global information system. The WWW has altered the way we communicate and share information by making it simple to access information from anywhere in the world. By working together, these technologies could make it possible for people all over the world to access information quickly and easily."
Where did This Birth Story begin From?
British scientist Tim Berners-Lee is well recognized for creating the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989 while working at CERN. The original purpose of the Web was to provide a way for scientists at universities and institutes around the globe to share information electronically.
CERN is the center of an international community of scientists. With over 17,000 scientists from more than 100 countries, it's important to have reliable communication tools so everyone can stay connected.
Scientists usually work at universities or national laboratories in their home countries, but they also spend some time on-site at CERN. This helps them to keep up with the latest discoveries and technologies and to collaborate with other scientists from around the world.
Here the Story Begins
In March 1989 and May 1990, respectively, Tim Berners-Lee produced the first and second proposals for the World Wide Web. In November 1990 Tim Berners-Lee with Robert Cailliau, a Belgian systems engineer formalized this as a management proposal.
%20Proposals.png "Tim Berners Lee Proposals for WEB | DigitalWolf") |
| Tim Berners Lee Proposals for WEB | Source: CER |
The main ideas and key terms behind the Web were presented in this. The document envisioned a "hypertext project" designated "World Wide Web" in which "browsers" could see a "web" of "hypertext documents."
By 1990, Tim Berners-Lee's first Web server and browser were operational at CERN. He coded the Web server on a NeXT computer. To prevent it from being turned off accidentally, the computer had a handwritten label in red ink that said: "This machine is a server. DO NOT POWER IT DOWN!!"
Here’s a fact for you.
The world's first web page was http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html on a NeXT computer at CERN. How crazy is that? If you're curious and want to learn more about the WWW project, the page has tons of links to information about it, to other Web Servers as they become live and technical details for creating your Web server.
The design of the early web made it easy for users to access existing information. For example, a web page could be linked to the CERN phone book or guides on how to use CERN’s central computers. Despite the absence of search engines in the early days of the web, users could nonetheless perform keyword searches.
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| Tim Berners-Lee's original WorldWideWeb browser in 1993 | Source: CERN |
This screenshot from 1993 shows the original Web browser designed by Berners-Lee, running on a NeXT computer. The browser included many features that are now common in contemporary browsers, as well as the ability to edit pages directly from within the browser – the first time this was possible.
The web spread gradually
The World Wide Web was created to make information more accessible to more people. Originally, only a few users had access to the NeXT computer platform on which the first browser ran. But work began on a more basic browser (Line-Mode Browser) that could function on any machine. While on a student work experience at CERN, Nicola Pellow penned it.
Berners-Lee introduced the WWW software, which contained a web browser (Line-Mode Browser), a web server, and a library for programmers, in 1991. The software was a big hit, and it quickly became the standard for how people accessed the internet. His colleagues at CERN were the first to have access to it. A couple of months later, in August 1991, he announced the WWW software on Internet newsgroups, and it quickly gained attention and users from all around the world.
Introduced Globally
The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in California, another particle physics lab, hosted the first Web server in the US in December 1991, thanks to the efforts of Paul Kunz and Louise Addis. There were essentially just two types of browsers at this point. One was the complex original development version, which was only compatible with NeXT computers. The other was the "line-mode" browser, which was simple to set up and use on any platform but had a low level of functionality and usability.
The small CERN team was unable to complete the necessary work to advance the system, so Berners-Lee made an online appeal for additional programmers to join the effort. Many people created browsers, primarily for the X-Window System. The following stood out among them: Erwise by Finnish students from Helsinki University of Technology; MIDAS by Tony Johnson from SLAC; Viola by Pei Wei from technical publisher O'Reilly Books; and MIDAS by Tony Johnson from SLAC.
The University of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) debuted the initial edition of its Mosaic browser at the beginning of 1993. This program enabled pleasant window-based interaction and operated in the X Window System environment, which is well-known in the research community. The NCSA soon after released versions for both the PC and Macintosh operating systems. The expansion of the WWW was immediately impacted by the availability of dependable, user-friendly browsers on these widely used machines.
At the completion of the same year, the European Commission sanctioned its first web project (WISE), which included CERN as a partner. World Wide Web became free software on April 30, 1993, when CERN made its source code freely available. By the end of 1993, there were around 500 web servers that were recognized, and the WWW contributed 1% of all internet traffic, which at that time felt like a lot (the rest was remote access, e-mail, and file transfer). "The year of the Web" was 1994. The First International World Wide Web Conference, started by Robert Cailliau, took place in May at CERN. It was termed the "Woodstock of the Web" and attended by 380 users and developers.
As 1994 went on, media outlets began to cover tales concerning the Web. The NCSA and the newly created International WWW Conference Committee (IW3C2) organized the second conference in the US in October which drew 1300 attendees. By the end of 1994, there were 10 million users and 10,000 servers on the Web, 2000 of which were for commercial purposes. To meet new demands, technology is constantly being improved. The most crucial features that would shortly been included were capabilities for e-commerce and security.
sought for open standard
The idea that the web should continue to be an open standard that anyone can use and that it shouldn't be locked up in a proprietary system was crucial. In this context, CERN submitted the "Web Core" concept to the European Commission as part of the ESPRIT program. The project's objective was to establish an international consortium in cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States (MIT). Berners-Lee formed the International World Wide Web Consortium in 1994 after leaving CERN to join MIT (W3C). Further web development was seen to be outside of CERN's principal objective because acceptance of the LHC project was soon. For W3C, a new partner in Europe was required.
To gain control over CERN, the European Commission resorted to the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Controls (INRIA).
The first W3C host in Europe was INRIA in April 1995, while the first host in Asia was Keio University in Japan (Shonan Fujisawa Campus) in 1996. European Research Consortium in Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) replaced INRIA as the European W3C Host in 2003. Beihang University was named the fourth Host by W3C in 2013. There were more than 400 member organizations from different countries as of September 2018.
