That the internet is used interchangeably with the World Wide Web is perhaps the most telling fact about Tim Berners-Lee's contribution. It wasn't always that way.
The Internet is a collection of computer networks, each able to communicate with each other by using IP, the Internet Protocol. When you connect to the internet, you are really connecting your computer to a local network, then using the local network to connect to at least one other network, through which you will access another computer that has something you want to see. It might be a video, it could be a game server - but chances are, it's a web page.
By the early 90s, these connected networks of computers enabled activities such as sending email, reading newsgroups and accessing files from File Transfer Protocol (FTP) sites. Taking into account the comparatively slow connections, it was a useful and interesting place. For the most part, though, it required a technical mind to bring it all together.
Then, Tim Berners-Lee, working at CERN, formulated a more convenient method of sharing information. Specifically, what he was working with was “hypertext,” text that included links to other texts. Expanding on this, consider if Computer A could make a hypertext file available to other computers on a network. The file might include a link to another file - select the link, and the other file would open. That other file could be on Computer B, and it wouldn't matter whether the file was across the room, or across the globe. As long as a connection could be set up to Computer B, a reader of the text would not have to care what distance separated the two files.
Unlike some previous hypertext implementations that had required documents using proprietary formats, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) documents are all text documents. Any text editor could be used to create one, and so there was no barrier to entry for anyone who wanted to set up a page, another page, a link between them, or links to other computers. To view the files and easily navigate the links, a "web browser" was needed, such as the one Berners-Lee coded, or the more advanced versions from Marc Andreesen's team at the University of Illinois.
Perhaps the most useful attribute of web browsers was that they needed to show the text, so any page created could be easily read. Web browsers such as Mosaic (released in 1993) made accessing text files easy. Type in a URL and the text appeared in your browser; click on a link and a new page of text appeared. One could bring up one page, click on a link, and nearly instantaneously be shown a page from a different server, a different country, a different continent. Mosaic contained a spinning globe that made manifest the idea that information from around the world could be made available almost as easily as clicking on a descriptive phrase.
When looking at the impact the Internet has on lives in the 21st century, it is too common to identify connected computers as the primary innovation. Nonetheless, while email addresses were relatively common in 1990, the Internet was still used primarily by the technically savvy. It was the appearance of the Web starting in 1990 - an easily available, freely usable, cheaply used user interface for text files - that made those networked computers really valuable. In short order, the Dot Com era began, and the expectation that information could be made available to anyone, everywhere, was born.
By the early 90s, these connected networks of computers enabled activities such as sending email, reading newsgroups and accessing files from File Transfer Protocol (FTP) sites. Taking into account the comparatively slow connections, it was a useful and interesting place. For the most part, though, it required a technical mind to bring it all together.
Then, Tim Berners-Lee, working at CERN, formulated a more convenient method of sharing information. Specifically, what he was working with was “hypertext,” text that included links to other texts. Expanding on this, consider if Computer A could make a hypertext file available to other computers on a network. The file might include a link to another file - select the link, and the other file would open. That other file could be on Computer B, and it wouldn't matter whether the file was across the room, or across the globe. As long as a connection could be set up to Computer B, a reader of the text would not have to care what distance separated the two files.
Unlike some previous hypertext implementations that had required documents using proprietary formats, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) documents are all text documents. Any text editor could be used to create one, and so there was no barrier to entry for anyone who wanted to set up a page, another page, a link between them, or links to other computers. To view the files and easily navigate the links, a "web browser" was needed, such as the one Berners-Lee coded, or the more advanced versions from Marc Andreesen's team at the University of Illinois.
Perhaps the most useful attribute of web browsers was that they needed to show the text, so any page created could be easily read. Web browsers such as Mosaic (released in 1993) made accessing text files easy. Type in a URL and the text appeared in your browser; click on a link and a new page of text appeared. One could bring up one page, click on a link, and nearly instantaneously be shown a page from a different server, a different country, a different continent. Mosaic contained a spinning globe that made manifest the idea that information from around the world could be made available almost as easily as clicking on a descriptive phrase.
When looking at the impact the Internet has on lives in the 21st century, it is too common to identify connected computers as the primary innovation. Nonetheless, while email addresses were relatively common in 1990, the Internet was still used primarily by the technically savvy. It was the appearance of the Web starting in 1990 - an easily available, freely usable, cheaply used user interface for text files - that made those networked computers really valuable. In short order, the Dot Com era began, and the expectation that information could be made available to anyone, everywhere, was born.
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