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So why didn't Engelbart invent HTML and HTTP in the 60s? At it's core it's a very simple protocol and minimal document format comparable in complexity to system
by simonh 3y ago
So why didn't Engelbart invent HTML and HTTP in the 60s? At it's core it's a very simple protocol and minimal document format comparable in complexity to systems that existed at the time. Computers back then were perfectly capable of implementing it.
Some here have compared the WWW to the iPhone, but the iPhone literally couldn't have existed even a few years previously. With the Web there were no meaningful barriers to it's development 20 years previously. If a more complex and clunky system had gained critical mass in it's place, that's what we might have got stuck with for a very long time.
- detourdog 3y agoIt took Englebert over a decade to build the mouse and when he was done and gave a demo Xerox hired his lab. The barrier to the web was a global network and an IP address for each node. When the network was sufficient size and people had access to ip addresses the web happened. Before that we all just used the internet.
- simonh 3y agoI'm not trash talking Englebart, in any way, I'm just saying the minimalist web approach was not at all obvious. To many, many pioneers there were a lot of sophisticated features they though would be absolutely essential to any pervasive hypertext system, that turned out not to be.
- detourdog 3y agoI wasn't sure. I thought it might be eye opening tidbit considering how many more years went into the development to make it commercial product. I can't remember if it was 14 or 17 years of development of Engelbart. Another big hero of mine from that era that helped invent the internet and regret the result was Wesley A. Clark. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_A._Clark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_A._Clark