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Really cool. You can also go to the page without the line mode browser emulation: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html http://info.cern.ch/hyperte

• peller 10y ago
  It still gets me the original tags/attributes were all uppercase. Personally, I'm quite thankful that didn't stick.
  • prodigal_erik 10y ago
    It made sense coming from SGML where you're mostly reading and writing text with an occasional bit of markup. Now it seems some people don't even know that text can appear on a page without first being munged in using the DOM.
    • peller 10y ago
      Interesting, did not know that bit of history. Thanks! For the curious: https://www.w3.org/TR/html4/intro/sgmltut.html https://www.w3.org/TR/html4/intro/sgmltut.html
    • tehwalrus 10y ago
      Something something... Markdown...
    • tannhaeuser 10y ago
      Allow me to plug my project here to resurrect SGML in all its glory. Just two days ago, my paper for parsing HTML5.1 in its entirety using SGML [1] has been accepted for the XML Prague conference, if anyone is interested. [1]: http://sgmljs.net/docs/html5.html http://sgmljs.net/docs/html5.html
  • mwpmaybe 10y ago
    I remember switching over. It took some getting used to!
  • zeven7 10y ago
    The help page user lowercase tags, so maybe it was always case-insensitive? http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Help.html http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Help.html
    • Volv 10y ago
      From Tim Berners-Lee - "Some tags take parameters, called attributes. The attributes are given after the tag, separated by spaces. Certain attributes have an effect simply by their presence, others are followed by an equals sign and a value. (See the Anchor tag, for example). The names of tags and attributes are not case sensitive: they may be in lower, upper, or mixed case with exactly the same meaning. (In this document they are generally represented in upper case.)" https://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/Tags.html https://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/...
  • highstep 10y ago
    A few years ago I managed to resurrect my first website which I wrote back in 1994/5 (found it on the waybackmachine.) When I re-published the site I left the uppercase HTML in place as historical artifacts sprinkled throughout the code. :) hah, I just was taking a look at that old code again and found this little gem: <H3 ALIGN = CENTER><BLINK>Frame ALERT!</BLINK><H3> <P> This document is designed to be viewed using <B>Netscape 2.0</B>'s Frame features. If you are seeing this message, you are using a frame <I>challenged</I> browser. </P> We've come a long way :)
    • Jugurtha 10y ago
      Not that much. Probably everyone writes something to handle challenged browsers, namely Internet Explorer <!--[if IE]>. I think what really changed is that the blink has become bad taste, but it has been replaced with other bad practices. Now if your code included screen resolutions forcing people to set their screens a certain way, that would be a throw-back.
      • erelde 10y ago
        Something like that? http://www.paulgraham.com/gfaq.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gfaq.html PS: I agree with Graham on his last point about web design, but that was the first example of fixed resolution that came to mind. I still write 2 or 3 css rules each time I read one of his essays.
        • Jugurtha 10y ago
          Actually, this was not his last point. The last point was commented out (if you read the page's source, you'll find this after the 70 characters per line comment). <!-- <b>How did you make the buttons in your site?</b><br><br>It's made with Yahoo Store. Yahoo Store made all the images in this site, not just the buttons but the titles and thumbnails as well. Within the software there is an image renderer, written in C, that takes as input s-expressions describing images.<br><br><b>What are the email addresses in white text at the bottom of the pages?</b><br><br>Bait for spam crawlers. --> Here's my opinion: The fixed resolution has fixed dimensions, not a fixed ratio. Meaning if you view the content on a different screen setting, the content will not change to preserve readability. It's different than the 70 characters per line because you still have 70 characters per line on a bigger screen. The eye not having to travel horizontally is the point because the travel can be irritating at any character size.. That's why code is limited to 70-80 characters per line. However, this is a problem on mobile: on a big screen, the 70 character is a good thing because you still have a good chunk of text vertically and are able to read with ease. On mobile, on the other hand, your reading speed is way faster than 80characters * number of lines displayed on a mobile screen.. So you spend your time scrolling frantically to keep up with how fast your eyes are reading. On a laptop, HN is too small but even having it zoomed at 150%, I still have a lot of leeway to read fast. On mobile, the layout is a bit better but every thread seems to go on like forever because the amount of scrolling is just insane. 70 characters per line was because horizontal eye scanning has a higher cost than vertical scanning. But a muscular action of the hand has a higher cost than both, which you're paying on mobile. Imagine reading a book in which each page has only 5 lines and you have to turn the page every couple of seconds. It's just way too tiring.
  • beobab 10y ago
    I don't think it was ever case sensitive. I'm pretty sure that in 1994, I was using lower case html tags without issue at university in Mosaic. Netscape Navigator definitely allowed you to use lower case tags. My final year project was littered with mixed case tags.
• kristianp 10y ago
  Hmm, no HTML tag, if you view source of http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
  • derefr 10y ago
    I wouldn't think you really need an <html> tag, provided the server has specified the right Content-Type. Heck, given that you can set stylesheets using the Link HTTP response header rather than the <link> tag, you can skip the separation of <head> and <body> for simple pages as well. Just start with what would go inside the body, and then the <head> ends up where it belongs—in the headers. ;)
  • JoshTriplett 10y ago
    The HTML spec allows omitting <html>, <head>, and <body>, under certain circumstances. See https://html.spec.whatwg.org/#syntax-tag-omission https://html.spec.whatwg.org/#syntax-tag-omission for the exact rules. (Not that that page validates with a modern HTML standard, but it doesn't fail for that particular reason.)
• Scarblac 10y ago
  I remember trying out the "World Wide Web" when it was ~1000 pages, most of them about physics. Didn't see the value, really. Just a gimmick. I always remember that when I'm about to dismiss something new...
• amelius 10y ago
  > According to http://line-mode.cern.ch http://line-mode.cern.ch that page hasn't even been modified to work in a modern browser - it still displays perfectly as-is! That is cool. But also, it is a shame that there is absolutely no way to ensure that a website keeps working in the future.
• return0 10y ago
  <NEXTID N="55"> I wonder what that is
  • landhar 10y ago
    it's a deprecated html element: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/nextid https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ne...
• vincentperes 10y ago
  Maybe the HTML part but not the CSS, there are browser specific attributes and use of 'em' for example.
• Anthony-G 10y ago
  Thanks for the actual URL. It’s currently being served over HTTP/1.1 but its Last-Modified date precedes HTTP/1.1 by 5 years. $ curl -I http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: Apache Last-Modified: Thu, 03 Dec 1992 08:37:20 GMT
  • Nition 10y ago
    Awesome!