How It All Started

Tim Berners-Lee

W3C Tenth Anniversary

1 Dec 2004

How It All Started

Tim Berners-Lee photo

Tim Berners-Lee
Director, World Wide Web Consortium

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

1945: Vannevar Bush article In Atlantic Monthly about a photo-electrical mechanical device called a Memex, for memory extension, which could make and follow links between documents on microfiche

W3C10 timeline graphic

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

1960: J.C.R. Licklider, Man Computer Symbiosis

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

1962: Douglas Englebart publishes "AUGMENTING HUMAN INTELLECT: A Conceptual Framework"

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

1965: Ted Nelson coins the term "Hypertext" in "A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate". 20th National Conference, New York, Association for Computing Machinery

Ted Nelson

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

1968: Douglas Englebart demonstrates Online System (NLS).

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

1969: Advanced Research Projects Agency commissions ARPANET to conduct research on networking. First ARPANET nodes connected.

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

1971: Ray Tomlinson of BBN creates email program to send messages across a distributed network.

1972: Tomlinson expands program to ARPANET users, using the "@" sign as part of the address.

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

1974: Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection", which specified in detail the design of a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).

Vint Cerf

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

1978: Part of TCP splits off, becoming the Internet Protocol (IP).

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

1980: While consulting for CERN, Tim Berners-Lee writes a notebook program, "Enquire-Within-Upon-Everything", which allows links to be made between arbitrary nodes.

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

1984: Paul Mockapetris introduces Domain Name System (DNS).

Paul Mockapetris

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

Mar: "Information Management: A Proposal" written by Tim Berners-Lee and circulated for comments at CERN.

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

May: Information Management: A proposal, version 2 published.

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

End 1990: Development begins for first browser (called "WorldWideWeb"), editor, server, and line-mode browser. Culminates in first Web client-server communication over Internet in December 1990.

Screenshot from first browser

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

Dec: Hypertext '91 Conference in San Antonio, Texas (USA). TBL paper on Web only accepted as poster session.

TimBL's poster at Hypertext 91

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

Jun: TimBL visits Xerox, hosted by Larry Masinter.

Larry Masinter

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

TimBL visits MIT/LCS hosted by Karen Sollins.

Karen Sollins

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

Dec: First Web server outside of Europe set up at Stanford University.

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

Jan: Number of browsers increasing and includes Midas, Erwise, Viola, and Samba.

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

Mar: NCSA releases first alpha version of Mosaic for X Windows.

Marc Andreesson

Chris Wilson

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

Apr: CERN agrees to allow anyone to use Web protocol and code royalty-free.

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

Jun: Dale Dougherty of O'Reilly hosts WWW Wizards Workshop in Cambridge Massachusetts, USA

Dale Dougherty

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

Nov: At a Newcastle, U.K. conference, Tim Berners-Lee discusses the future of the Web with MIT's David Gifford, who suggests that Tim contact Michael Dertouzos.

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

Mark Andreessen and colleagues leave NCSA to form Mosaic Communications Corp., which later became Netscape.

Pre-W3C Web and Internet Background

Traditional dial-up systems (CompuServe, AOL, Prodigy) begin to provide Internet access.

W3C

Feb: Tim Berners-Lee meets Michael Dertouzos in Zurich to discuss possibility of starting new organization at MIT

Michael Dertouzos

W3C

Apr: Alan Kotok, then at DEC, visits CERN to discuss creation of Consortium

Alan Kotok

W3C

1 Oct: W3C created.

W3C

Apr: INRIA becomes W3C Host in Europe.

JFA

W3C

Jun: First W3C Workshop, on Content Rating; leads to PICS.

David Singer

W3C

Jun: In response to "Peabody meeting" W3C forms Process ERB

Steve Zilles

Process ERB

W3C

Sep: Keio University becomes W3C Host in Asia.

W3C

W3C publishes first W3C Recommendation for HTML — HTML 3.2.

Dave Raggett

W3C Team

W3C Team photo, November 2001, Courmettes, France.

W3C Team

Photo courtesy of Karl Dubost.

Next Session

The Impact on Science and Industry by Denis Lacroix (Amadeus e-Travel), Teri Richman (National Association of Convenience Stores), Moderator: Michel Cosnard (INRIA and ERCIM)

All W3C10 Sessions