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The idea of the domain name was created
By the middle 1980s, the Internet had a new, easy-to-use system for naming computers. This involved using the idea of the domain name. A domain name comprises a series of letters separated by dots, for example: `www.bo.com' or `www.erb.org.uk'. These names are the easy-to-use alternative to the much less manageable and cumbersome IP address numbers. A program called Distributed Name Service (DNS) maps domain names onto IP addresses, keeping the IP addresses `hidden'. DNS was an absolute breakth -
Tim Berners-Lee invents the Web with HTML as its publishing language
at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, Switzerland. -
The time was ripe for Tim's invention
The fact that the Web was invented in the early 1990s was no coincidence. Developments in communications technology during that time meant that, sooner or later, something like the Web was bound to happen. For a start, hypertext was coming into vogue and being used on computers. Also, Internet users were gaining in the number of users on the system: there was an increasing audience for distributed information. Last, but not least, the new domain name system had made it much easier to address a m -
Open discussion about HTML across the Internet begins
Far from keeping his ideas private, Tim made every attempt to discuss them openly online across the Internet. Coming from a research background, this was quite a natural thing to do. In September 1991, the WWW-talk mailing list was started, a kind of electronic discussion group in which enthusiasts could exchange ideas and gossip. -
NCSA is intrigued by the idea of the Web
Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Tim's ideas had caught the eye of Joseph Hardin and Dave Thompson, both of the National Center for Supercomputer Applications, a research institute at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. They managed to connect to the computer at CERN and download copies of two free Web browsers. Realizing the importance of what they saw, NCSA decided to develop a browser of their own to be called Mosaic. Among the programmers in the NCSA team were Marc Andre -
Lou Montulli releases the Lynx browser version 2.0a
Lou Montulli was one of the first people to write a text-based browser, Lynx. The Lynx browser was a text-based browser for terminals and for computers that used DOS without Windows. Lou Montulli was later recruited to work with Netscape Communications Corp., but nonetheless remained partially loyal to the idea of developing HTML as an open standard, proving a real asset to the HTML working group and the HTML Editorial Board in years to come. Lou's enthusiasm for good, expensive wine, and his kn -
The Mosaic browser is released
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NCSA assigns commercial rights for Mosaic browser to Spyglass, Inc.
In May 1994, Spyglass, Inc. signed a multi-million dollar licensing agreement with NCSA to distribute a commercially enhanced version of Mosaic. In August of that same year, the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, the home of NCSA, assigned all future commercial rights for NCSA Mosaic to Spyglass. -
The first World Wide Web conference is held in Geneva, with HTML+ on show
Although Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark had commercial interests in mind, the rest of the World Wide Web community had quite a different attitude: they saw themselves as joint creators of a wonderful new technology, which certainly would benefit the world. They were jiggling with excitement. Even quiet and retiring academics became animated in discussion, and many seemed evangelical about their new-found god of the Web. At the first World Wide Web conference organized by CERN in May 1994, all wa -
HTML specification for HTML 2 is released
During 1993 and early 1994, lots of browsers had added their own bits to HTML; the language was becoming ill-defined. In an effort to make sense of the chaos, Dan Connolly and colleagues collected all the HTML tags that were widely used and collated them into a draft document that defined the breadth of what Tim Berners-Lee called HTML 2. The draft was then circulated through the Internet community for comment. With the patience of a saint, Dan took into account numerous suggestions from HTML en -
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) sets up an HTML working group
In early 1994, an Internet Engineering Task Force working group was set up to deal with HTML. he Internet Engineering Task Force is the international standards and development body of the Internet and is a large, open community of network designers, operators, vendors and researchers concerned with the evolution and smooth operation of the Internet architecture. The technical work of the IETF is done in working groups, which are organized by topic into several areas; for example, security, netw -
Netscape is formed
During 1993, Marc Andreessen apparently felt increasingly irritated at simply being on the Mosaic project rather than in charge of it. Upon graduating, he decided to leave NCSA and head for California where he met Jim Clark, who was already well known in Silicon Valley and who had money to invest. Together they formed Mosaic Communications, which then became Netscape Communications Corp. in November, 1994. What they planned to do was create and market their very own browser. The browser they de -
The World Wide Web Consortium forms
The World Wide Web Consortium was formed in late 1994 to fulfill the potential of the Web through the development of open standards. They had a strong interest in HTML. Just as an orchestra insists on the best musicians, so the consortium recruited many of the best-known names in the Web community. Headed up by Tim Berners-Lee, here are just some of the players in the band today (1997): -
HTML 3 is published as an Internet Draft
Dave Raggett had been working for some time on his new ideas for HTML, and at last he formalized them in a document published as an Internet Draft in March, 1995. All manner of HTML features were covered. A new tag for inserting images called FIG was introduced, which Dave hoped would supersede IMG, as well as a whole gambit of features for marking up math and scientific documents. Dave dealt with HTML tables and tabs, footnotes and forms. He also added support for style sheets by including a ST -
Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser comes out
Version 1.0 of Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser was announced. This browser was eventually to compete with Netscape's browser, and to evolve its own HTML features. To a certain extent, Microsoft built its business on the Web by extending HTML features. The ActiveX feature made Microsoft's browser unique, and Netscape developed a plug-in called Ncompass to handle ActiveX. This whole idea whereby one browser experiments with an extension to HTML only to find others adding support to kee -
Style sheets for HTML documents begin to take shape
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The W3 Consortium working draft on Scripting comes out
Based on an initial draft by Charlie Kindel, and, in turn, derived from Netscape's extensions for JavaScript, a W3C working draft on the subject of Scripting was written by Dave Raggett. In one form or another, this draft should eventually become part of standard HTML. -
Work on `Cougar' is begun (Work title for HTML 4)
The HTML ERB became the HTML Working Group and began to work on `Cougar', the next version of HTML with completion late Spring, 1997, eventually to become HTML 4. With all sorts of innovations for the disabled and support for international languages, as well as providing style sheet support, extensions to forms, scripting and much more, HTML 4 breaks away from the simplicity and charm of HTML of earlier years! -
HTML 3.2 is ready
Success! In January 1997, the W3 Consortium formally endorsed HTML 3.2 as an HTML cross-industry specification. HTML 3.2 had been reviewed by all member organizations, including major browser vendors such as Netscape and Microsoft. This meant that the specification was now stable and approved of by most Web players. By providing a neutral forum, the W3 Consortium had successfully obtained agreement upon a standard version of HTML. There was great rejoicing, indeed. HTML 3.2 took the existing IET -
Cougar has now fully materialized as HTML 4.0
Cougar has now fully materialized as HTML 4.0 and is a W3C Proposed Recommendation. But do the major browsers implement HTML 4.0, you wonder? As usual in the computer industry, there is no simple answer. Certainly things are heading in that direction. Neither Netscape's or Microsofts browser completely implements style sheets in the way specified, which is a pity, but no doubt they will make amends. There are a number of pecularities in the way that OBJECT works but we very much hope that this w -
XHTML is released
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XHTML 2 is released
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the Mozilla Organization announced that they planned to change their focus from the Mozilla Suite to Firefox and Thunderbird.
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HTML 5 begins to show up
