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> I wasn't there, but the internet presumably had value before the www, by having email, ftp and usenet. As someone who was barely there, it was largely a stan
by ethbr0 4y ago
> I wasn't there, but the internet presumably had value before the www, by having email, ftp and usenet.
As someone who was barely there, it was largely a standardized client problem. That's why NSCA Mosaic and later Netscape Navigator were so important.
The Internet provided transport... but for what?
To GP's standardization point, the Internet wouldn't have been successful if every server required you to have a different client to talk a different protocol. (The landscape was very different than that in which mobile apps now live)
Web protocols + a client browser that understood them = palatable UX
- AlbertCory 4y agoThat's true. However, before the web, it was absolutely common to anonftp to some site, download the software, type ./configure and make, and off you went. That's how software got distributed. And Internet standards. Not the same as the web, of course, and your grandmother wouldn't have been doing it.
- rolph 4y agoone of the bigger problems was telneting between VAX and UNIX systems. there was content back then, but no curation. we would telnet from one machine to another using CLI. the reward was a wall of ASCII highly formatted with extended fonts. you could lurk in the login areas trying unix-fu or find a mud or a BBS. there was always tin for reading usenet as a method of content search. there wasnt so much content fiefdom, you could share links or post content with little oversight except numbers of attendance.