WorldWideWeb
Encyclopedia
WorldWideWeb, later renamed to Nexus to avoid confusion between the software and the World Wide Web
, was the first web browser
and editor. When it was written, WorldWideWeb was the only way to view the Web.
The source code
was released into the public domain
in 1993. Some of the code still resides on Tim Berners-Lee
's NeXTcube
in the CERN museum and has not been recovered due to the computer's status as a historical artifact.
during the second half of 1990, while working for CERN
. The first successful build was completed on December 25, 1990, after only two months of development. Successive builds circulated among Berners-Lee's colleagues at CERN before being released to the public, by way of Internet newsgroups, in August 1991. By this time, several others, including Bernd Pollermann, Robert Cailliau
, Jean-François Groff, and graduate student Nicola Pellow
– who wrote the Line Mode Browser – were involved in the project.
The team created so called "passive browsers" which don't have the editing prospects because it was hard to port
the ability editing pages like on the NeXT system to other operating system
s. The port to the X Window System
(X) wasn't possible as nobody on the team had experience with X.
Berners-Lee and Groff later adapted many of WorldWideWeb's components into a C programming language
version, creating the libwww
API
.
A number of early browsers appeared, notably ViolaWWW
. They were all eclipsed by Mosaic
in terms of popularity, which by 1993, had replaced the WorldWideWeb program. Those involved in its creation had moved on to other tasks, such as defining standards and guidelines for the further development of the World Wide Web – e.g. HTML
, various communication protocols, etc.
On April 30, 1993, the CERN directorate released the source code of WorldWideWeb into the public domain, making it free software
. Several versions of the software are still available to download from evolt.org's browser archive. Berners-Lee initially considered releasing it under the GNU General Public License
, but eventually opted for public domain to maximize corporate support.
was built around NeXTSTEP's Text class
.
, movies and sounds), browsing newsgroup
s, and spellchecking
. At first, images were displayed in separate windows, until NeXTSTEP's Text class supported Image objects.
The browser was also a WYSIWYG
editor. It allowed the simultaneous editing and linking of many pages in different windows. The functions "Mark Selection", which created an anchor, and "Link to Marked", which made the selected text an anchor linking to the last marked anchor, allowed the creation of links. Editing pages remotely was not yet possible, as the HTTP PUT method
had not yet been implemented. Files would be edited in a local file system which was in turn served onto the Web by an HTTP server.
WorldWideWeb's navigation panel contained Next and Previous buttons that would automatically navigate to the next or previous link on the last page visited, similar to Opera
's Rewind and Fast Forward buttons; i.e., if one navigated to a page from a table of links, the Previous button would cause the browser to load the previous page linked in the table. This was useful for web pages which contained lists of links. Many still do, but the user interface link-chaining was not adopted by other browser writers, and it disappeared until it was later picked up by later web browsers. An equivalent functionality is nowadays provided by connecting web pages with explicit navigation buttons repeated on each webpage among those links, or with typed link
s in the headers of the page. This places more of a burden on web site designers and developers, but allows them to control the presentation of the navigation links.
WorldWideWeb didn't have features like bookmarks, but a similar feature was presented in the browser: if a link should be saved for later use linking it to the user's own home page (start page), the link would be remembered in the same fashion as a bookmark. The ability to create more home pages were implemented, similar to folders in the actual web browsers bookmarks.
Later versions were also able to display inline images.
WorldWideWeb was able to use different protocols: FTP
, HTTP
, NNTP
, and local files
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
, was the first web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
and editor. When it was written, WorldWideWeb was the only way to view the Web.
The source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
was released into the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
in 1993. Some of the code still resides on Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
's NeXTcube
NeXTcube
The NeXTcube was a high-end workstation computer developed, manufactured and sold by NeXT from 1990 until 1993. It superseded the original NeXT Computer workstation and was housed in a similar cube-shaped magnesium enclosure. The workstation ran the NeXTSTEP operating system.- Hardware :The...
in the CERN museum and has not been recovered due to the computer's status as a historical artifact.
History
Berners-Lee wrote WorldWideWeb on a NeXT ComputerNeXT Computer
The NeXT Computer was a high-end workstation computer developed, manufactured and sold by Steve Jobs' company NeXT from 1988 until 1990. It ran the Unix-based NeXTSTEP operating system. The NeXT Computer was packaged in a 1-foot die-cast magnesium cube-shaped case, which led to the machine being...
during the second half of 1990, while working for CERN
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
. The first successful build was completed on December 25, 1990, after only two months of development. Successive builds circulated among Berners-Lee's colleagues at CERN before being released to the public, by way of Internet newsgroups, in August 1991. By this time, several others, including Bernd Pollermann, Robert Cailliau
Robert Cailliau
Robert Cailliau , born 26 January 1947, is a Belgian informatics engineer and computer scientist who, together with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, developed the World Wide Web.-Biography:...
, Jean-François Groff, and graduate student Nicola Pellow
Nicola Pellow
Nicola Pellow was a member of the WWW Project at CERN, working with Tim Berners-Lee. She joined the project in November 1990, while an undergraduate maths student at Leicester Polytechnic ....
– who wrote the Line Mode Browser – were involved in the project.
The team created so called "passive browsers" which don't have the editing prospects because it was hard to port
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
the ability editing pages like on the NeXT system to other operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s. The port to the X Window System
X Window System
The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
(X) wasn't possible as nobody on the team had experience with X.
Berners-Lee and Groff later adapted many of WorldWideWeb's components into a C programming language
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
version, creating the libwww
Libwww
libwww is a highly-modular client-side web API for Unix and Windows, and is also the name of the reference implementation of this API....
API
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
.
A number of early browsers appeared, notably ViolaWWW
ViolaWWW
ViolaWWW, first developed in the early 1990s, for Unix and the X Windowing System, was the first popular web browser which, until Mosaic, was the most frequently used web browser for access to the World Wide Web...
. They were all eclipsed by Mosaic
Mosaic (web browser)
Mosaic is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was also a client for earlier protocols such as FTP, NNTP, and gopher. Its clean, easily understood user interface, reliability, Windows port and simple installation all contributed to making it the application that opened...
in terms of popularity, which by 1993, had replaced the WorldWideWeb program. Those involved in its creation had moved on to other tasks, such as defining standards and guidelines for the further development of the World Wide Web – e.g. HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
, various communication protocols, etc.
On April 30, 1993, the CERN directorate released the source code of WorldWideWeb into the public domain, making it free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
. Several versions of the software are still available to download from evolt.org's browser archive. Berners-Lee initially considered releasing it under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
, but eventually opted for public domain to maximize corporate support.
Technical information
Since WorldWideWeb was developed on and for the NeXTSTEP platform, the program used many of NeXTSTEP's components – WorldWideWeb's layout engineLayout engine
A web browser engine, , is a software component that takes marked up content and formatting information and displays the formatted content on the screen. It "paints" on the content area of a window, which is displayed on a monitor or a printer...
was built around NeXTSTEP's Text class
Class (computer science)
In object-oriented programming, a class is a construct that is used as a blueprint to create instances of itself – referred to as class instances, class objects, instance objects or simply objects. A class defines constituent members which enable these class instances to have state and behavior...
.
Features
WorldWideWeb was capable of displaying basic style sheets, downloading and opening any file type supported by the NeXT system (PostScriptPostScript
PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
, movies and sounds), browsing newsgroup
Newsgroup
A usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations. The term may be confusing to some, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on...
s, and spellchecking
Spell checker
In computing, a spell checker is an application program that flags words in a document that may not be spelled correctly. Spell checkers may be stand-alone capable of operating on a block of text, or as part of a larger application, such as a word processor, email client, electronic dictionary,...
. At first, images were displayed in separate windows, until NeXTSTEP's Text class supported Image objects.
The browser was also a WYSIWYG
WYSIWYG
WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed onscreen during editing appears in a form closely corresponding to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product...
editor. It allowed the simultaneous editing and linking of many pages in different windows. The functions "Mark Selection", which created an anchor, and "Link to Marked", which made the selected text an anchor linking to the last marked anchor, allowed the creation of links. Editing pages remotely was not yet possible, as the HTTP PUT method
Method (computer science)
In object-oriented programming, a method is a subroutine associated with a class. Methods define the behavior to be exhibited by instances of the associated class at program run time...
had not yet been implemented. Files would be edited in a local file system which was in turn served onto the Web by an HTTP server.
WorldWideWeb's navigation panel contained Next and Previous buttons that would automatically navigate to the next or previous link on the last page visited, similar to Opera
Opera (web browser)
Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software with over 200 million users worldwide. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent,...
's Rewind and Fast Forward buttons; i.e., if one navigated to a page from a table of links, the Previous button would cause the browser to load the previous page linked in the table. This was useful for web pages which contained lists of links. Many still do, but the user interface link-chaining was not adopted by other browser writers, and it disappeared until it was later picked up by later web browsers. An equivalent functionality is nowadays provided by connecting web pages with explicit navigation buttons repeated on each webpage among those links, or with typed link
Typed link
A typed link in a hypertext system is a link to another document or part of a document that includes information about the character of the link...
s in the headers of the page. This places more of a burden on web site designers and developers, but allows them to control the presentation of the navigation links.
WorldWideWeb didn't have features like bookmarks, but a similar feature was presented in the browser: if a link should be saved for later use linking it to the user's own home page (start page), the link would be remembered in the same fashion as a bookmark. The ability to create more home pages were implemented, similar to folders in the actual web browsers bookmarks.
Later versions were also able to display inline images.
WorldWideWeb was able to use different protocols: FTP
File Transfer Protocol
File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server...
, HTTP
Hypertext Transfer Protocol
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is a networking protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web....
, NNTP
Network News Transfer Protocol
The Network News Transfer Protocol is an Internet application protocol used for transporting Usenet news articles between news servers and for reading and posting articles by end user client applications...
, and local files
File URI scheme
The file URI scheme is a URI scheme specified in RFC 1630 and RFC 1738, typically used to retrieve files from within one's own computer.- Format :A file URL takes the form of file://host/path...
Naming
Berners-Lee proposed different names for his new application: The Mine of Information and The Information Mesh were proposals. At the end WorldWideWeb was chosen, but later renamed to Nexus to avoid confusion between the World Wide Web and the web browser.External links
- Tim Berners-Lee: WorldWideWeb
- A Little History of the World Wide Web
- Berners-Lee's blog
- Weaving the Web (ISBN 0-06-251587-X), Berners-Lee's book about the conception of the Web
- Nexus binaries and source
- CERN, Where the Web Was "WWW" born