Before there was a WEB - There was Internet

[! !]

Thank God some of these original posts survive...

Can you imagine that in our lifetime - there was initial attempts by the inventors of the world to sell this New idea to other techies:


The first attempts at explaining the New World wide web - read & enjoy


http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22tim+berners%22&num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=4&as_maxm=6&as_maxy=1992&filter=0


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Also, right around that time there was a new competing technology called "gopher" that was consuming the imagination of the tech-savy



http://groups.google.com/groups?q=gopher+archie&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=4&as_maxm=3&as_maxy=1992&filter=0


what historical gems these posts are ... :D

[Chris_D]

Here in Australia, in the mid 1980's we had 'Viatel' - which was a Videotex (not teletext) X25 based network. It used PC's (as they were in 1986) and 1200/75 baud modems - and big chunky graphics. The system would refresh your screen at 1200 baud - and you could 'upload' at 75 baud - which is sort of the fastest a competent typist can type....

Australia's Viatel was sort of based on the French Minitel system.

But - as agricultural as it was - you could do online banking, read the news online etc etc. Corporates used videotex based front ends to set up closed user group systems to their mainframes.

And many of those companies who were early Viatel pioneers in Australia were actually the first to bring these interactive systems to the 'Microsoft Network' - and later to the 'internet' / WWW. Like Comm Bank's Netbank - which launched in about 1985 on Viatel - not 1995 on the web!!.

The first national Public email system in Australia launched around the same timescale 1985/6 - when Telex was still a 'cash cow' and was still the preferred 'secure' form of business communication.......

Hasn't the world changed in the last 20 years!!! :)

[Anthony Parsons]

Yep....now technology is lucky to sit still for a month.

[K.S. Katz]

I remember in the early 90s when I used UNIX to MUD with my college buddies. There was no GUI or web pages, just text.

What's really sad is I haven't had to use UNIX in 10 years so I've pretty much forgotten it.

[wiseMouse]

what is the WWW :D

[MikeDammann]

World War 5 5

[warza bidul]

Thank God some of these original posts survive...

Can you imagine that in our lifetime - there was initial attempts by the inventors of the world to sell this New idea to other techies:


The first attempts at explaining the New World wide web - read & enjoy


http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22tim+berners%22&num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=4&as_maxm=6&as_maxy=1992&filter=0


_______________________________________

Also, right around that time there was a new competing technology called "gopher" that was consuming the imagination of the tech-savy



http://groups.google.com/groups?q=gopher+archie&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=4&as_maxm=3&as_maxy=1992&filter=0


what historical gems these posts are ... :D

If you know of the birth of the world wide web you surely know about Robert Caillau. He worked with Tim Berners Lee and helped him get the funding and authorisation to work on the world wide web project. i was lucky enough to meet Caillau at the CERN when doing a news story for Polish television. It was an interesting experience to see the NeXT computer which TBL had used to code the two protocols.

I have seen a huge amount of change since I started spending a lot of time online from around 1996 onwards.

[seo]

Vince Cerf & Robert Khan

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/06-08-2005/0003824243&EDATE=

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Al Gore (Webby)

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Cybershake/story?id=833922&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

[mcanerin]

LOL - on Al Gore - but I'll allow that the legislation helped a lot - I'd agree he was an instrumental supporter of the WWW (just not the inventor!).

Speaking of instrumental supporters, there is another controversial one that I feel needs mentioning (like it or not!): Bill Gates.

Now, don't shoot the messenger, here, but without ol' Bill getting on the internet bandwagon and forcing it upon everyone buying Win95 (even the ones who never heard of it), I think the WWW would be a very different place - certainly emptier.

He wrote a memo that turned his company around on a dime - not an easy task for a company that big. Within 6 months every single MS dept and project had to outline it's internet objectives - which raised a lot of eybrows - can you imagine the initial response of the Excel team (ummm, it's a spreadsheet, sir...).

And yet, look at it today. Further, this put pressure on MS's competitors to enter into the arena - also good for everyone.

The famous memo in question:

http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/columns/1995essay/essay950815.asp

My favorite quote form the memo (remember, this was 10 years ago):
Only some of the companies laying bets on the Internet will be winners. But companies that bet against the Internet will be losers.

MS has done some really dumb things regarding the internet, especially in the area of proprietary thinking and products, but credit where credit is due for popularizing it, I think.

Ian

[PhilC]

Actually, I have nothing against Bill Gates at all. It's thanks to his desire to make money, and IBM's failure to close the PC off because they only expected to sell 1.5 million units, that we have the cheap computers and advances that we have today.

The original post in this thread is interesting because not everyone knows the difference between the Internet and the Web. Probably most people think that they are the same thing - but they are not. The Internet is a network of computers and the Web is a hyperlink system that uses the network.

I'm not so sure that the Web would have been set back if Microsoft hadn't got involved. There was a time when M$ were considering starting up their own alternative to the Internet - hence MicroSoft Network - MSN, but they abandoned the idea because the Internet was too well established. I also remember when a reporter asked Bill Gates if M$ had a department that was dealing with the Internet. His answer was, "Yes. It's called Microsoft". That was how the world found out that M$ were entering the Internet.

[seo]

I'm not so sure that the Web would have been set back if Microsoft hadn't got involved. There was a time when M$ were considering starting up their own alternative to the Internet - hence MicroSoft Network - MSN, but they abandoned the idea because the Internet was too well established

Phil comments prompted some investigation

Apparently many other large firms also were aware of The Internet potential

judging by the very first (.com .edu. .net .gov - without the "WWW") registered Domain Names BEFORE the World Wide Web began (http://groups.google.com/group/alt.internet.providers.uk/browse_thread/thread/1edb56de8baa9abb/b565f47917b0ae91#b565f47917b0ae91)