©Mark Ollig
Tim Berners-Lee, an engineer and computer scientist,
wrote the programming code we use to point and click our way through the web
portion of the internet.
I say “portion,” because the web and the internet,
despite what folks may think, are not synonymous with each other.
The internet is an interconnected global data network
made up of computers, routers, gateways, and cables. TCP/IP communication
protocols send and receive packets of information. A packet of data can be
compared with an addressed envelope.
If you put the correct address on a packet and drop it
off into any computer connected on the internet, the computer would figure out
which path to send it down next, until the packet reaches its final
destination.
The internet will deliver packets to an internet
destination anywhere in the world using various protocols, and it does this
very quickly – usually under one second.
“The web is simply a name for all the information you
can get online,” said Berners-Lee.
In 1989, Berners-Lee, while working at the European
Particle Physics Laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, proposed a global
hypertext space where any network-accessible information could be referred to
by a Universal Document Identifier (UDI).
The UDI is known today as the Uniform Resource Locator
or the URL we type when accessing a particular website.
Berners-Lee called his web creation, a “global
hypertext system.”
By 1990, Berners-Lee finished programming the code for
the web browser application, calling it a “WorldWideWeb Program.”
May 17, 1991, Tim Berners-Lee installed his newly-coded
HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
software on his NeXTcube computer.
Berners-Lee’s NeXTcube computer had become the first
web server connected to the internet.
Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web platform was operating as
an overlay on the internet to support his newly-created web protocols.
Aug. 6, 1991, the first web page was created by Tim
Berners-Lee on his NeXTcube computer and was publically-available over the
internet.
This website was publicized by Berners-Lee on several
internet newsgroups, including alt-groups such as alt.hypertext.
The eyes of internet users opened wide upon
understanding the potential uses for websites.
The tremendous growth of new websites with unique
themes over a global internet had begun in earnest; a new chapter in the lives
of our virtual online community had begun.
The rest, as they say, is history.
In 1996, the undertaking of storing and preserving the
rising number of webpages from the internet was started by an organization
called the Internet Archive.
This organization began with a mission to preserve past
and current internet webpages – and other types of online data – so future
generations could look back, research, and educate themselves with the
internet’s historical information as initially presented.
“The Internet Archive is working to prevent the
Internet – a new medium with major historical significance – and other
“born-digital” materials from disappearing into the past,” their original
mission statement said.
Each day, the Internet Archive collects, organizes,
catalogs, and preserves web content from websites on the internet, and from the
data files uploaded by the public.
This organization preserves and stores digital records
for future generations, and offers historians, students, researchers, and you
and me, access to the many thousands of digitally-saved historical collections.
These free collections contain a treasure trove of
photographs, books, movies, music, audio files, software, educational and
historical references, and archived internet web pages.
I think of the Internet Archive as a continuing
collection of websites being stored in a digital time capsule.
As I have done, you too can upload videos, text, audio,
and photos to be archived for current and future generations. To begin, you
will need to obtain your Internet Archive virtual library card at
http://bit.ly/2gxWGJV.
“The dream behind the Web is of a ‘common information
space’ in which we communicate by sharing information,” said Berners-Lee in
1989.
Thirty years later, his dream has progressed from
sharing information on websites to using specific web apps for monitoring,
analyzing, and advancing information obtained from electronic devices which
make up the Internet of Things.
The world’s first website can be seen at
https://bit.ly/2V08wUe.
The Internet Archive website is https://archive.org.
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| The first web page went made by Tim Berners-Lee. It ran on a NeXT computer at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN August 6, 1991 |
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| The NeXTcube used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN became the first Web server. Photo by |
