Linux-Advocacy Digest #61, Volume #29 Mon, 11 Sep 00 22:13:06 EDT
Contents:
Re: The internet was built on WIndow 95? (was Re: How low can they go...?)
(R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ))
Re: How low can they go...? (lyttlec)
Re: How low can they go...? ("Erik Funkenbusch")
Re: How low can they go...?
Re: How low can they go...? (Seán Ó Donnchadha)
Re: Inferior Engineering of the Win32 Platform (IE for Linux) ("Christopher Smith")
Re: [OT] Public v. Private Schools ("Joe R.")
Re: Sun cannot use Java for their servers!! (lyttlec)
Re: The internet was built on WIndow 95? (was Re: How low can they go...?)
(R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ))
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: The internet was built on WIndow 95? (was Re: How low can they go...?)
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 00:56:07 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
lyttlec <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Simon Cooke wrote:
> >
> > "lyttlec" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
> > > >
> > > > "R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > > wrote in message
> > > > news:8pcivr$nj1$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > > > By the time Microsoft came out with Windows 95,
> > > > > there were already
> > > > > over 40 million Windows 3.1 users using trumpet
> > > > > winsock and Mosaic or Netscape.
> > > >
> > > > Rex. You should really... I mean *REALLY* look this
> > > > stuff up before posting
I lived it! I was directly involved at the most fundamental levels,
with the earliest commercial sources of internet software and hardware.
In 1991, there were roughly 1 million internet users, and the growth
rate was pretty steady at 20%/month, doubling every 4 months. By March
of 1992, there were nearly 4 million users. By 1993, there were nearly
16 million users, and by 1994 there were nearly 40 million users.
This included all forms of access, including e-mail, fidonet, usenet
news, gopher, and web.
In 1994, Mosaic 2.0 came out and was downloaded at the rate of nearly
200,000 copies a day for over a month. Given that this software fit
comfortably on a single floppy (along with trumpet winsock) it was
pretty easy to make connections.
Most of the early adopters were college students and recent college
graduates. Dial-up service via "pink slip" was possible but incredibly
slow since the X3 pads imposed delays on the ack packets coming from the
user back to the server.
Eventually, under the initiative of AOL,
> > > > it. The internet did not exceed 10 million estimated
> > > > users until about 1996.
By 1996 there were 10 million internet users registered by AOL, Prodigy,
and MSN. These were the "big three", and these were the ones who were
collecting $20/month and $5/hour for access. The core of the internet
was STILL nearly 90% independents and a loosely affiliated network of
dial-up ISPs who gradually formed reciprocity agreements and supernets.
In some states like Colorado where each local calling area encompassed
hundreds of square miles (All of Denver was one calling area,
Castle Rock to Colorado Springs and Pueblo was another, and Fort Collins
was another), very few ISPs were needed. In other states like New
Jersey (home of AT&T headquarters), the state chopped the Latas so
fine that it eventually took almost 500 local POPs to service the
entire state.
I have pretty reliable numbers from some of the largest service
prodiders of the time on my website (www.open4success.com/Olnews).
My numbers are subject to challenge. At one point, in late 1995, it was
quite obvious that although there were over 100,000 e-mail accounts
identified by usenet, (sniffed from traffic along the original
backbone), it was pretty obvious that many users had multiple accounts,
including a work account, a prodigy or AOL account, a fido account or
two, and an ISP provided account.
By 1996, AOL and Prodigy were demanding that the X.25/X.3 backbone
originally used to carry dial-up traffic be replaced with high-speed
terminal servers and T1 ribs to a DS3 backbone. MCI provides the most
reliable estimates of Internet usage, since they were the primary
service provider in the earliest days.
> > > > There is no way that 40 mllion Windows 3.1 users
> > > > could have been using the internet in 1995.
Actually, it was quite easy. Trumpet provided a simple TCP/IP
winsock stack, FTP, and telnet access, Mosaic provided the web browser,
and there were thousands of independent FIDO and Wildcat boards that
were providing e-mail, usenet news, and slip or ppp access.
In many cases, the local newspapers provided the initial dial-up pops
and/or high speed trunks to which the Fido/POPS could connect.
> > > Depends on how you define internet.
> > > In the early 90s the 40,000,000
> > > number included "intranet" and BBS (such as early AOL and its
> > > competitors) users that were later folded into the internet.
> >
> > Given that this post was written this year,
> > I suggest we use today's definition for the internet,
The problem is that your 10 million in 1996 number is also a
misrepresentation. This would have been strictly those people
connecting to the internet through the primary providers surveyed by
IDC, specifically AOL, Compuserve (a latecomer), Prodigy (still keeping
users captive), and MSN. Microsoft published a number of releases
claiming that they were the leader of the Internet by comparing
themselves to those numbers exclusively, based on number of subscribers
having monthly deductions from their credit/debit cards directly to the
"Online Service".
But this was actually the smallest portion of the market. Providers
like Netcom, PSInet, Digex, BBN, and hundreds of smaller independent
providers (most of which have since been purchased by AOL), represented
90% of the market.
It would be similar to Microsoft comparing themselves exclusively to
Netscape Enterprise server and one or two commercial servers (that don't
even make the Netcraft ratings chart) and claiming that they have 80% of
the web server market.
Mosaic 2.0 and Navigator 1.0 provided the much needed means to count
the users. By assigning cookies, counting the cookies and the IP
addresses as unique keys, and by tracking repeat usage, Netscape was
able to identify a major segment of the Internet market (enough to
interest investors in making substantial IPO investmests) as early as
late 1994.
Your original assertion that MICROSOFT somehow LED the formation of
the internet is totally innacurate. In fact, Microsoft was caught
completely by suprise, had spent nearly $1 billion trying to create
a competitor to Lotus Notes based on Exchange, and scuttled their
own architecture because they realized that the Internet was already
outstripping the most agressive growth plans Microsoft could
realistically create.
I had worked with Ed Levinson during the time he was writing his papers
on MIME enclosures in E-mail and many users found that HTTP and SMTP
could be interchanged quite easily.
By the time Microsoft came out with it's own brand of Mosaic (Internet
Explorer), the net was already suffering from traffic jams and delays
resulting from tens of millions of concurrent users jamming the T1
lines. The telephone companies were already experiencing a major
crunch from PPP and SLIP users tying up telco lines for hours on
networks designed for an average call of 20 minutes.
Obviously, there was a bit of a feud going on between the
single-service online-services such as Prodigy and Compuserve
who didn't want to loose control of their user base, and AOL who
charged 85% of any revenue earned by companies hosted on the AOL
servers. None of the big Online Services wanted it too well known
that the Internet and TCP/IP was completely outstripping the X.25
architecture which the Online services had invested in so heavily
during the late 1980s.
Fortunately, the Hughes network did make it fairly easy to convert
even the X.25 channels into frame relay traffic. This made the upgrade
to a T1 network much easier when that did occurr in 1996.
Of course, by that time, the independent ISPs were leasing T1
frame-relay circuits to DS3 and DS5 backbone nodes. Many POPS were
sporting multiple 24 channel trunks and redundant T1 connections. A
pleasant side effect of customers who were GLAD to pay $20/month flat
rate to ISPs who didn't make them wait 2 hours for a dial-up line.
> > rather than jump in a supposed timewarp back to
> > 1995 where the "Internet" actually meant
> > exactly the same as it does today.
Actually, you're correct. Back in 1995, you only had CGI and
HTML/GIF/JPEG. Netscape had some plug-ins, and they usually ended
up creating security holes. Most of the Fortune 500 companies had
fire-walls and many touted internet access as a fringe-benefit. By
the time Microsoft came out with Windows 95, nearly every major
corporation had already established informational sites.
You couldn't order things via credit card because Bill Clinton and Al
Gore were still claiming that 40 bit encryption over the Internet
posed a national security threat. With the PGP case still in the
courts, no corporation wanted to risk federal charges for exchanging
48bit DES traffic (let alone 56 bit RC5 for SSL handshake/key passing)
until the courts or Congress could make up their minds.
By early 1997 the official estimate was already over 120 million
users world-wide. This estimate was remarkably accurate because
both Microsoft and Netscape were registering and capturing cookies
and browser information on anyone willing to drop by.
> > (AOL/Compuserve/FidoNet and Intranets were not considered
> > part of the internet -- however, JANet, BitNet, etc etc.
> > were considered separate portions of the internet)
Actually, AOL was the first service provider to aggressively
support the Internet. Jeff Bezos was originally planning to do
the Hosting, the web indexing, and the web search engines for
everybody, but the availability of the FreeWais and Verity search
engines, coupled with hundreds of ISPs with more T1 than dial-up
created a market that was far too competitive. AOL changed it's
business model and went directly to the Internet user.
Several times, AOL, Prodigy, and Microsoft have attempted to use
censorship as justification for putting their users under protective
firewalls that would protect children from pornographers (anybody who
doesn't pay AOL a huge percentage for access to AOL users), but each
attempt has only resulted in loss of user base, since users quickly
noticed that their favorite non-pornographic sites (Linux advocacy
pages, independent ISPs, freeware...) were suddenly unavailable.
My own daughter was unable to get to Yahoo, Lycos, or Infoseek
because the "kiddie guard" prevented access. Even my 17 year
old son couldn't get to competitor sites. Eventually, we switched
to a local carrier who provided appropriate access limitations
(excludes self-registered RSAC "Adult" sites only).
> > Simon
> I was just quoting where the 40,000,000 number came from.
> It was all the users who eventualy merged into what we know
> as the "internet" today.
> The number wasn't made up from thin air,
> but has some foundation in fact.
Ericks number also has basis in fact. There were at least two IDC
reports which listed only the users counted by AOL, Compuserve,
Prodigy, and Microsoft as "full service internet providers".
It's similar to Novell's claims to be the leading Network Operating
System, based on a narrow definition which included both client and
server components. Or Microsoft's attempts to use definitions that
excluded Apache from Web Server markets.
There were numerous responses to these absurd underestimates, including
rebuttals from Gartner, and the formation of a Nielson based estimating
system. Nearly all current historical models place the internet user
count at between 30 and 60 million by the end of 1995.
Microsoft's compulsary inclusion of Internet Explorer, combined with
the sale of nearly 300 million Windows 95 systems from 1996 to 1998
has certainly not HURT the internet (Ironically, many analysts still
use the most conservative estimating tools), and the additional 200
million Windows 98 systems sold since the release of Windows 98 as
further boosted internet usage.
On the other hand, both users and ISPs have flatly rejected numerous
attempts by Microsoft to incorporate Microsoft-only technology into
the core infrastructure of the Internet.
In spite of intense pressure from Microsoft, and over $1 billion in
marketing, promotional, and incentive investments, Microsoft's IIS
has actually been LOSING Market share to Apache and Apache derivatives.
In spit of intense pressure from Microsoft to promote ActiveX
controls, VBScript, and Front Page extensions, most web sites still
offer HTML/CGI forms to users who want them. Since many of these
users are corporate purchasing managers and/or reccomend purchases,
and are protected by firewalls that prevent the use of many of these
"fancy gadgets" for security reasons, no one wants to tell a customer
with $1 billion in his pocket to "go find a Mosiac friendly vendor"
(essentially, with ActiveX, VBScript, and Front-Page disabled, the
user is essentially using the original Mosaic browser). Many
companies even disable Java or Trusted Java Applets.
> Because the number does have some foundation it is fair to say
> "40,000,000 Windows 3.1 users using trumpet winsock and Mosaic or
> Netscape". They just weren't necessarily connected to
> the "internet" as it defined today, but the "intercommunications
> networks" as they existed then.
Actually, 1994 was the breakthrough year for the Web. During the 12
months from May of 1994 to May of 1995, nearly 3000 publications were
putting content on the web, including McGraw-Hill's 179 publications,
Gannet, Time-life, Conde Nast, and thousands of local newspapers.
Many publishers even formed associations to make it easier to purchase
advertizing on the web. And there were nearly 2 million companies
advertizing (mostly home pages and brochures) on the web. The
challenge, by the Microsoft arrived on the scene, had already shifted
from getting the eyeballs of millions of users, to getting information
about those users that could be converted into purchase decisions,
follow-up action, and revenue.
Even though much of the infrastructure existed, it took the passage
of the Pressler act to force the Clinton Administration to allow
the use of strong encryption on the web. Ironically, Microsoft had
already begun using illegal forms of encryption on it's own web site.
> Even today, most of my use of browsers and winsock
> have nothing to do with today's "internet".
The internet has evolved, to shift from a network capable of supporting
a few Gifs or JPEGS in very low resolution (early web pages rarely used
more than 300x200x8color images due to 9600 baud modems with x3-slip
pauses that yielded effective rates of 140 bytes/sec) used by a mere
40 million users who averaged 1 hour/day of usage, to over 200 million
users who average 4 hours/day on the internet downloading 640x400
animated GIFS and 64,000 color JPEGS over Cable Modem and DSL lines.
If one were to credit any ONE SINGLE COMPANY for this success, it
would have to be Sun Microsystems. NOT Microsoft!
Sun was the company that actively supported Linux back when most
companies were still fighting UNIX. Sun was the company that provided
low-cost web servers when those Linux systems were outgrown. Sun was
the company that made the transition from Linux to Solaris as painless
as possible by supporting the same compilers, the same library calls,
and the same core tools. Sun was the company that offered Java as an
alternative to custom writted Windows code. Sun was the company that
published open standards back when even their own investors thought
they were crazy to do so.
Sun understates their contribution when they say they "put the dot
in dot com". Bill Joy was doing TCP/IP sockets back at Berkely when
Microsoft was still working on a hierarchal file system for MS-DOS.
(those dates probably are off ;-)
--
Rex Ballard - I/T Architect, MIS Director
Linux Advocate, Internet Pioneer
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 42 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 5%/month! (recalibrated 8/2/00)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: lyttlec <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: How low can they go...?
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 01:13:16 GMT
"T. Max Devlin" wrote:
>
> Said lyttlec in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
> >"T. Max Devlin" wrote:
> [...]
> >> You're simply squirming around, not addressing the point. No, an EULA
> >> cannot prevent you from selling the 'product' you bought. What it does,
> >> in the text that you guys are getting confused about, is prevent you
> >> from selling just *part* of the 'product', that being either the license
> >> to use OR the copy of the IP, without the other.
> >>
> >Bookmans has always insisted that all the original packaging (including
> >the EULA) be present whenever they accepted software for trade. This
> >seemed to satisfy the gamers, but not Microsoft. If your premis is
> >correct, why would MS threaten to charge Bookmans with piracy?
>
> My guess would be because Bookmans is doing this with OEM EULAs on
> Windows, and the 'original packaging' included a computer which isn't
> present.
>
> --
> T. Max Devlin
> -- Such is my recollection of my reconstruction
> of events at the time, as I recall. Consider it.
> Research assistance gladly accepted. --
>
> -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
> http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
> -----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----
The material was VC++, Visual Basic, MS Office and other such, not the
OS. AFAIK, they never had any copies of the OS. They were good about
following all the "for sale only with a new computer" warnings.
Thay is why I say it is good news that MS did this. Kids in school
aren't rich. They can perhaps afford a used copy of VC++, but aren't
going to shell out several hundred dollars for a new copy. Therefore,
the number of MS programmers is going to begin to dry up.
------------------------------
From: "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: How low can they go...?
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 20:29:50 -0500
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >What's there to address? You just described the normal relationship
> >between platforms and applications.
>
> ...which is why it's a BAD idea to relegate the user's
> default shell to "just an application" rather than a
> more stable part of the core OS.
Oh, you mean like an X server?
------------------------------
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: How low can they go...?
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 17:57:43 -0700
Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Ermine Todd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:e5zaGYDHAHA.66@cpmsnbbsa09...
> What "ruse"? You're buying the right to get and use the information and
> software. For pricing, I would suggest contacting MSDN at
> http://msdn.microsoft.com .
Yes, a ruse. To rejoin the Microsoft Sofware Developer's Network to just
get access to one particular copy of Windows, (Windows 95 OSR 2) without
intending at this time to do any actual future development for the Windows
environment IS a ruse.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/prodinfo/pricing.asp.
However, the only one being taken for a ride by this ruse would be me.
Since, it would cost either $699.00 or $2,499.00 to joind MSDN as the level
nessary to qualify for the benefit of having free access to the OS. In
effect the prince for Winodw 95 OSR 2 would be $699.00 or $2,499.00. See,
Any OS aquired like this is not legally valid for general use either, since
as stated on this page, "Includes a limited license for development and
testing only".
http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/prodinfo/overview.asp.
Not only would a person following your suggestion be over priced for the
value recieved but that person could also be called a software pirate. In
spite of your suggestion, nothing has changed.
------------------------------
From: Seán Ó Donnchadha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: How low can they go...?
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 21:18:00 -0400
On Tue, 12 Sep 2000 00:39:24 GMT, lyttlec <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >
>> >How do you address the issue of the loss of control of the appearance,
>> >quality, performance, and behavior of the software to the whims of thoses
>> >who developed the rendering software AKA browser. How do you also address
>> >the issue of the program's user interface going haywire should a minor
>> >upgrade via a service pack cause the renderer to no longer render the
>> >program's user interface the way that the programmers of the program had
>> >intended?
>>
>> What's there to address? You just described the normal relationship
>> between platforms and applications.
>
>No it isn't normal.
>
Of course it is. Applications have always relied on platform services.
>
>The platform should *free* you to use your talents
>and abilities. Not make you squander them on trying to guess what some
>marketer thought he could con or force people into buying.
>
Oh, for the love of... Could you translate that into something
meaningful?
>
>That's why I
>refuse to buy any OS that doesn't include a true command line interface.
>
Oh, OK. That makes lots of sense. You want a command line interface
because reusable HTML components a-la IE force you to squander, eh,
what, again?
>
>HTML is good for turning out mediocre barely good enough products in
>short time. At the cost of surrendering your soul to anonymous coward
>
OOOH KAAAY! I think we're done here!
------------------------------
From: "Christopher Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Inferior Engineering of the Win32 Platform (IE for Linux)
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 11:21:53 +1000
"Brian Langenberger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8pj3bt$ka$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy Ingemar Lundin
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> <regarding IE on Solaris>
>
> : Sorry! cant belive you...that is simply not possible
>
> : /IL
>
> :> Its far, far worse than 'nutscrape' on any platform.
>
> Trust me. It is. Imagine, if you will, an X application that
> replaces the standard X11 pointer cursor and "stopwatch" cursor
> with MS-Windows ones. As I recall, even the little "hand"
> pointer was Windows-ified. But wait, there's more! It took
> twice as long as Netscape to start (on the same system) and
> ran about half as fast with mediocre rendering to boot.
>
> All-in-all, it felt like it was running in some sort of
> emulated environment rather than as a native app and I
> deleted it from my system within the hour. So yes,
> IE for Solaris really is much worse than Netscape.
Since they basically reimplemented Win32, COM etc that IE depends on, you
essentially *were* running an "emulated environment" :).
------------------------------
From: "Joe R." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: [OT] Public v. Private Schools
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 01:18:06 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Aaron R. Kulkis"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> The *only* thing that we can do to change the climate is that which
> changes the terrain sufficiently to alter the energy flows in
> rivers and air currents.
>
> And even then, all we will do is *change* the energy flow, not destroy
> it.
And that's more than enough to drastically change the climate.
There was an article in the NY Times news service just last week on how
the climate has changed in many major cities. They used Atlanta as an
example, but other cities have had the same effect.
Man has changed the climate in many places -- sometimes drastically.
>
> If a major river is re-routed, the climate will be *CHANGED* not
> destroyed.
> If a mountain range is leveled, the climate will be *CHANGED*, not
> destroyed.
Nice try to move the goalposts.
You claimed that Man couldn't even change the climate. Now you're
pretending that the argument was about destroying the climate. How do
you "destroy" a climate?
>
> In either case, some organisms will suffer, and others will prosper.
>
> All in all, it's a zero-sum game.
Not quite. Greenhouse warming can, at least in principle and possibly in
fact, change the overall temperature.
But there's still plenty of room for the climate to change --
For example, let's take a situation where the earth's mean temperature
remains the same. Let's say that today it's 60 degrees F. What if it
changes so that exactly half the planet is at a constant 140 degrees and
the rest is at -20 degrees. According to you, that's a zero sum game and
shouldn't matter. Of course, it does.
--
Regards,
Joe R.
------------------------------
From: lyttlec <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.lang.java.programmer,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Sun cannot use Java for their servers!!
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 01:19:58 GMT
Nik Simpson wrote:
>
> "lyttlec" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > >
> > So, as you ask, what painted the BSOD on the screen?
>
> The same thing that prints kernel PANIC messages in UNIX, it's the OS
> kernel's last dying effort, not the BIOS.
>
> --
> --
> Nik Simpson
Right. A small application that runs after the kernel blew up. If the
kernel is in shape to do a proper shutdown, that is. If it is not in
proper shape the results are unpredictable. You can never tell what the
kernel was doing at the instant of failure (except for known built in
bugs), so ...
------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: The internet was built on WIndow 95? (was Re: How low can they go...?)
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 01:10:45 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > The first graphical Web
> > Browser - Viola, was written exclusively for UNIX.
>
> You might say "the first web browser that could
> display inline images."
>
> The first point-and-click web browser was written for the NeXT. Then
> came a command-line Unix browser that looked pretty clunky. This was
> all Tim Berners-Lee had to show when he came to MIT in 1991 talking as
> if this WWW project was going to take over the Internet. The lead
> TechInfo developers didn't believe him, and neither did I when they
> showed me what he had showed them.
Thanks for the reference. My exposure to Tim Berners Lee wasn't until
late 1991. Actually, Tim's browser was actually more of an editor
that gave read-write capaibility. Tim's work was eventually
incorporated into the Andrew Usuer Interfaces System, which included
the EZ multimedia editor. Although EZ supported full SGML, the HTML
version was much easier to use as a WYSIWYG editor.
Viola was a response to a request for a read-only access package to
read EZ generated documentation. The main concern, for those of us
who were trying to get large corporations to publish information via
the internet, was that we had to make sure that no one could come in
and modify content that had been published. Viola was essentially a
cross between Lynx (which was a read-only replacement for tex-info)
and EZ (which needed it's "writer" disabled.
The original concept was to have a port, similar to FTP, that could only
do GETs. Tim improved this by adding the ability to do POSTS for the
CGI interface. This left the server site in complete control of the
traffic while still providing a two-way capability.
> http://browsers.evolt.org/worldwideweb/NeXT/WorldWideWeb.html
>
> --
> Bruce R. Lewis
http://brl.sourceforge.net/
>
--
Rex Ballard - I/T Architect, MIS Director
Linux Advocate, Internet Pioneer
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 42 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 5%/month! (recalibrated 8/2/00)
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