4 ms·

You literally couldn't have used the web much earlier than 1994 unless you were running a NeXT machine. I know because I've been on the net since 1988 and 1994

by rmason 6y ago

You literally couldn't have used the web much earlier than 1994 unless you were running a NeXT machine. I know because I've been on the net since 1988 and 1994 was when I first started browsing the web. If you were on Windows it was tricky then as you had to download and configure your own tcp/ip stack. That was possible due to the ingenuity of Peter Tattam who sold software that let you do that. I met him back then and to some of us he was a true rockstar programmer.

kgwgk 6y ago
You're right. The explosion of the multi-plaform web happened in 1993 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libwww https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libwww
- BryanBigs 6y ago
  I was using the web in college in 1993. After my very first experience with a browser, i thought gopher was superior. Of course, a 1200 baud connection makes graphics a bit less impressive and more of a pita.
  - kgwgk 6y ago
    Lucky you, that had access to a graphical browser! My first experience was sending an email with the url I wanted to access to a server that would send back the hypertext document a few minutes later. Edit: Something like https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1996-02-20-3077566-story.html https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1996-02-20-3077566-story.h...
xorcist 6y ago
That's a bit of a stretch. The web is hard to date, 1990 is often mentioned, but it had already spread quite a bit by 1994. Of course there's a wikipedia article on this, which counts 10k+ web sites at the end of that year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_founded_before_1995 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_founded_befor... For most applications you would dial up a remote system anyway so many used the web by way of plain terminal software. The Lynx web browser had existed for just over two years by then and it wasn't the first web client.
- jefftk 6y ago
  I don't think I've seen 1990? You could make a case for 1991 or 1992, but I don't see how anyone could have been using the web in 1990 when it hadn't been even initially implemented yet? For example, see "The Original HTTP as defined in 1991": https://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/AsImplemented.html https://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/AsImplemented.html
- mstade 6y ago
  Case in point – in '94 I was in fourth grade at a school that made a big deal of their computer department, and how they were hooked up to the web. When geocities launched ('95?) we were making homepages as school assignments. So many "under construction" images – it was glorious! It may not have been ubiquitous as it is today, but the web was definitely not out of reach for normal people back in '94.
- kgwgk 6y ago
  Lynx was not a "web browser" in the current sense until 1993.
Synaesthesia 6y ago
The first browser for windows was NCSA Mosaic. I remember installing that. When Internet Explorer came out it was so advanced! I remember it supported background images!
- kgwgk 6y ago
  It seems the first one was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_(web_browser) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_(web_browser)
CPLX 6y ago
You could have also been in a college in 1994, as I was, where there was easy access to the new-ish at the time World Wide Web via every computer in every lab. Your comment doesn’t seem accurate, it was starting to catch on pretty aggressively by 1994.
- kgwgk 6y ago
  But 1994 is not much earlier than 1994, right? How is the comment you reply to inaccurate? The first non-NeXT browsers appeared in 1992 (unless you count the Line Mode Browser from 1991).
lizknope 6y ago
I started college in the fall of 1993. I went to a science and math boarding school for high school where we had Internet access. We used Archie to find FTP sites to find stuff. I think it was Christmas break 1993 when a high school friend came to visit (he went to a different college) and started up Mosaic. I asked him what it was and then he laughed that I was still using Archie and FTP to find stuff. I think it was xmosaic version 0.9 or something like that.
DrScientist 6y ago
You could use the web before that, but with text based browsers which frankly weren't very inspiring nor popular. Most people preferred gopher etc - there was a brilliant mac gopher client. What transformed the web was the launch of the Mosaic along with NCSA HTTPd - mostly in the backend of 1993 - it took off like wild fire - it's hard to remember dates, but I definitely remember the launch of Netscape Browser - which according to wikipedia was late 1994 - and at that point the web was already pretty popular. Not just the web, but a large percentage of people had their own websites - it was ridiculously easy to do - just put an index.html in your ~/public_html folder. Obviously this was all the in rarefied atmosphere of academia - and the computers were Unix work stations and most users were at University and largely PhD students at that.
mattl 6y ago
August 1991. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Mode_Browser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Mode_Browser
thro1 6y ago
You could. X.25. Gopher.
- kgwgk 6y ago
  That's not "the web".

by rmason 6y ago

kgwgk 6y ago

You're right. The explosion of the multi-plaform web happened in 1993 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libwww https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libwww

BryanBigs 6y ago
I was using the web in college in 1993. After my very first experience with a browser, i thought gopher was superior. Of course, a 1200 baud connection makes graphics a bit less impressive and more of a pita.
- kgwgk 6y ago
  Lucky you, that had access to a graphical browser! My first experience was sending an email with the url I wanted to access to a server that would send back the hypertext document a few minutes later. Edit: Something like https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1996-02-20-3077566-story.html https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1996-02-20-3077566-story.h...

xorcist 6y ago

That's a bit of a stretch. The web is hard to date, 1990 is often mentioned, but it had already spread quite a bit by 1994. Of course there's a wikipedia article on this, which counts 10k+ web sites at the end of that year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_founded_before_1995 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_founded_befor... For most applications you would dial up a remote system anyway so many used the web by way of plain terminal software. The Lynx web browser had existed for just over two years by then and it wasn't the first web client.

jefftk 6y ago
I don't think I've seen 1990? You could make a case for 1991 or 1992, but I don't see how anyone could have been using the web in 1990 when it hadn't been even initially implemented yet? For example, see "The Original HTTP as defined in 1991": https://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/AsImplemented.html https://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/AsImplemented.html
mstade 6y ago
Case in point – in '94 I was in fourth grade at a school that made a big deal of their computer department, and how they were hooked up to the web. When geocities launched ('95?) we were making homepages as school assignments. So many "under construction" images – it was glorious! It may not have been ubiquitous as it is today, but the web was definitely not out of reach for normal people back in '94.
kgwgk 6y ago
Lynx was not a "web browser" in the current sense until 1993.

Synaesthesia 6y ago

The first browser for windows was NCSA Mosaic. I remember installing that. When Internet Explorer came out it was so advanced! I remember it supported background images!

kgwgk 6y ago
It seems the first one was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_(web_browser) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_(web_browser)

CPLX 6y ago

You could have also been in a college in 1994, as I was, where there was easy access to the new-ish at the time World Wide Web via every computer in every lab. Your comment doesn’t seem accurate, it was starting to catch on pretty aggressively by 1994.

kgwgk 6y ago
But 1994 is not much earlier than 1994, right? How is the comment you reply to inaccurate? The first non-NeXT browsers appeared in 1992 (unless you count the Line Mode Browser from 1991).

lizknope 6y ago

I started college in the fall of 1993. I went to a science and math boarding school for high school where we had Internet access. We used Archie to find FTP sites to find stuff. I think it was Christmas break 1993 when a high school friend came to visit (he went to a different college) and started up Mosaic. I asked him what it was and then he laughed that I was still using Archie and FTP to find stuff. I think it was xmosaic version 0.9 or something like that.

DrScientist 6y ago

You could use the web before that, but with text based browsers which frankly weren't very inspiring nor popular. Most people preferred gopher etc - there was a brilliant mac gopher client. What transformed the web was the launch of the Mosaic along with NCSA HTTPd - mostly in the backend of 1993 - it took off like wild fire - it's hard to remember dates, but I definitely remember the launch of Netscape Browser - which according to wikipedia was late 1994 - and at that point the web was already pretty popular. Not just the web, but a large percentage of people had their own websites - it was ridiculously easy to do - just put an index.html in your ~/public_html folder. Obviously this was all the in rarefied atmosphere of academia - and the computers were Unix work stations and most users were at University and largely PhD students at that.

mattl 6y ago

August 1991. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Mode_Browser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Mode_Browser

thro1 6y ago

You could. X.25. Gopher.

kgwgk 6y ago
That's not "the web".