WWW Essay, Research Paper
The History of the Internet and the WWW
1. The History of the World Wide Web-
The internet started out as an information resource for the government
so that they could talk to each other. They called it “The Industrucable
Network” because it was so many computers linked to gether that if one server
went down, no-one would know. This report will mainly focus on the history of
the World Wide Web (WWW) because it is the fastest growing resource on the
internet. The internet consists of diferent protocals such as WWW, Gopher (Like
the WWW but text based), FTP (File Transfer Protocal), and Telnet (Allows you
to connect to different BBS’s). There are many more smaller one’s but they are
inumerable. A BBS is an abreviation for Bullitin Board Service. A BBS is a
computer that you can ether dial into or access from the Internet. BBS’s are
normally text based.
2. The Creator of the WWW-
A graduate of Oxford University, England, Tim is now with the Laboratory
for Computer Science ( LCS)at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT).
He directs the W3 Consortium, an open forum of companies and organizations with
the mission to realize the full potential of the Web.
With a background of system design in real-time communications and text
processing software development, in 1989 he invented the World Wide Web, an
internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing. while
working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory. He spent two years
with Plessey elecommunications Ltd a major UK Telecom equipment manufacturer,
working on distributed transaction systems, message relays, and bar code
technology.
In 1978 Tim left Plessey to join D.G Nash Ltd, where he wrote among
other things typesetting software for intelligent printers, a multitasking
operating system, and a generic macro expander.
A year and a half spent as an independent consultant included a six
month stint as consultant software engineer at CERN, the European Particle
Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. Whilst there, he wrote for his own
private use his first program for storing information including using random
associations. Named “Enquire”, and never published, this program formed the
conceptual basis for the future development of the World Wide Web. I could go on
and on forever telling you about this person, but my report is not about him.
From 1981 until 1984, Tim was a founding Director of Image Computer
Systems Ltd, with technical design responsibility. In 1984, he took up a
fellowship at CERN, to work on distributed real-time systems for scientific data
acquisition and system control.
In 1989, he proposed a global hypertext project, to be known as the
World Wide Web. Based on the earlier “Enquire” work, it was designed to allow
people to work together by combining their knowledge in a web of hypertext
documents. He wrote the first World Wide Web server and the first client, a
wysiwyg hypertext browser/editor which ran in the NeXTStep environment. This
work was started in October 1990, and the program “WorldWideWeb” first made
available within CERN in December, and on the Internet at large in the summer of
1991.
Through 1991 and 1993, Tim continued working on the design of the Web,
coordinating feedback from users across the Internet. His initial specifications
of URIs, HTTP and HTML were refined and discussed in larger circles as the Web
technology spread.
In 1994, Tim joined the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS)at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). as Director of the W3 Consortium
which coordinates W3 development worldwide, with teams at MIT and at INRIA in
France. The consortium takes as it goal to realize the full potential of the web,
ensuring its stability through rapid evolution and revolutionary transformations
of its usage.
In 1995, Tim Berners-Lee received the Kilby Foundation’s “Young
Innovator of the Year” Award for his invention of the World Wide Web, and was
corecipient of the ACM Software Systems Award. He has been named as the
recipient of the 1996 ACM Kobayashi award, and corecipient of the 1996 Computers
and Communication (C&C) award.
He has honorary degrees from the Parsons School of Design, New York
(D.F.A., 1996) and Southampton University (D.Sc., 1996), and is a Distinguished
Fellow of the British Computer Society. This has just been about Tim, but here
is the real hsitory of the WWW.
3. History of the WWW dates -
“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). Project proposal reformulated with encouragement from
CN and ECP divisional management. Robert Cailliau (ECP) is co-author. The name
World-Wide Web was decided because the name tells you what the reasorce does.
HyperText is the language that users who want homepages on the internet use to
write them. (See a sample of this on last page). In November of 1990 Initial
WorldWideWeb program developed on the NeXT (TBL) . This was a wysiwyg
browser/editor with direct inline creation of links. This made the WWW easier to
use and navigate without having to type long numbers. 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. When this happend the WWW really started sprouting
because this new browsers made the WWW easier to navigate.
4. History of the World Wide Web dates 1991-1993
In 1991 a line mode browser (www) released to limited audience on “priam”
vax, rs6000, sun4. On the 17th of May a general release of WWW software was made
avalible on Cern servers. This allowed people to start ther own internet
providing such as America Online and South Carolina SuperNet. On the 12th of
June a siminar was held for the WWW that allowed people to come in and see this
new software in progres. I would like to skip ahead to present day because more
intersting things are happening now.
5. Present Day World Wide Web and Internet reasorces-
The World Wide web today is the most popular reasource on the internet.
Facts show that the internet has an average 45 million users on a day with one
more joining every eight seconds. The internet transmits at a maximum speed of
100mb per second. Present day internet is fast and relyable, it is also very
popular. The internet started out as just a few computers linked together, and
now look what we have. The internet will live on forever, and so will the WWW. I
belive that the WWW will be replaced by something in the next 10 years.