Tim Berners-Lee (center) demonstrates the World Wide Web to delegates
at the Hypertext 1991 conference in San Antonio, Texas
It took decades for society to adopt the new technologies of telegraphy, automobiles, and radio. In contrast, it took just a few years for Americans to jump onto the internet.
The idea came from Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, who was researching particle physics in the 1980s. At that time, research teams had difficulty in accessing each other’s computers to share information.
Berners-Lee developed a system that would readily access data between connected computers. He developed a program for creating and addressing web pages and a protocol for transmitting data.
On August 22, 1991, he posted a note on several online forums to introduce his system. And on August 23, someone outside his facility logged onto his computer for the first time.
By 1994, only six percent of Americans were using the web. But Amazon and eBay launched the following year. By 1997, they had both reached a million transactions. Today ninety percent of Americans use the internet, with a third reporting they use it almost constantly.
Wait! Just wait a minute. I thought Al Gore invented the internet.
ReplyDeleteDave
He did claim that. Was a embarrassment from my home state of Tennessee as was his sorry ass farther Al Senior. No talent or value of any kind!
DeleteHis actual quote: “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the
Deleteinitiative in creating the Internet.” He was clearly but loosely refering to legislation, not protocols and code. Republicans cherry picked and misquoted what he said, and the so-called liberal media ran that instead. In truth, he contributed to the process that changed the government, university, and research internet into the one that we carry around in our pockets today.
@1:26, words matter, stop trying to sugar coat it.
Delete👆🏻👆🏻 ditto ghostsniper
DeleteWindows 95 changed the world and millions of lives. I wonder what the world would be like without it? We wouldn't know the truth that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteThe dark haired guy with the beard looks like David Codrea.
ReplyDeleteRead The Innovators by Walter Isaacson.
ReplyDeleteIt was all the free porn that did it.
ReplyDeletePaul Krugman, economist and NY Times writer said "by 2005, it would become clear that the Internet's effect on the economy is no greater than the fax machine's." A real visionary right there.
ReplyDeleteTim Berners-Lee didn't invent the Internet, he invented the World Wide Web, which is one of several applications that use the Internet. The Internet - the scheme for interconnecting computers - had been around for something like ten years at that point.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Al Gore, the DARPA project that eventually became the Internet was under way before he got into politics (1977 according to Wikipedia, whereas early Internet RFCs documents were written in 1969 or so). He might have had some influence on it somewhere along the line though. And yes, so did porn - anyone else remember those life size ASCII art pictures that used to grace the insides of computer room doors back in the day?