Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Wow...The inventor of the World Wide Web

OK, I know that this may seem silly, but I am actually very excited. For you to understand my excitement, you need a short history lesson about the WorldWideWeb: (Courtesy Wikipedia)

While an independent contractor at CERN from June to December 1980, Tim Berners-Lee proposed a project based on the concept of hypertext, to facilitate sharing and updating information among researchers.[2] With help from Robert Cailliau, he published a more formal proposal for the World Wide Web.[3]

A NeXTcube was used by Berners-Lee as the world's first web server and also to write the first web browser, WorldWideWeb in 1990. By Christmas 1990, Berners-Lee had built all the tools necessary for a working Web:[4] the first Web browser (which was a Web editor as well), the first Web server and the first Web pages[5] which described the project itself.

On August 6, 1991, he posted a short summary of the World Wide Web project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup[6]. This date also marked the debut of the Web as a publicly available service on the Internet.

That website is STILL on the net. You can see it here: The First Webpage.

In the photo above, do you see the sticker on the CPU? It says "This machine is a server. DO NOT POWER DOWN!!". Back then, if you unplugged the computer, you unplugged the World Wide Web! Wow!

Anyways, I wrote a simple, somewhat silly email to Tim Berners-Lee Monday just to say thanks for the web. I wrote:
Hi Tim,

Thanks for the WorldWideWeb! It's cool and works great! Just wanted to be sure someone said thanks.

Aloha,

Rich in Honolulu
I was mostly fishing for a response, and didn't really expect him to write back. He wrote me back! I got an email from the inventor of the web! He says:

Rich,

Thank you so much for writing. Many people have said thanks over the years.
You are the only one today on this anniversary.

Best wishes,

Tim



I think that is pretty cool and definitely blog-worthy! Just wanted to share my geeky excitement.

Peace, Love and Long Live the World Wide Web,

Rich
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1 comment:

Barbara said...

Dear Rich,
Although I am not a computer geek (I don't know the difference between html and http), I do share your enthusiasm for the wonders of the world-wide web!
Reminds me of a t-shirt: "Blessed are the geeks, for they shall inherit the earth"

12:21 PM

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