Line mode browser

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Line mode browser

Screenshot
Wikipedia in the Line Mode Browser
Basic data

developer W3C / CERN
Publishing year 1990
Current  version 5.4.1
( December 4, 2006 )
operating system platform independent
programming language C.
category Web browser
License W3C Software Notice and License
www.w3.org/LineMode/

The Line Mode Browser is a minimalistic web browser that is operated via a command line. It was the first web browser that was available for all common operating systems and thus made the World Wide Web generally accessible. It is being developed by the W3C (originally from CERN ).

functionality

In order to function as possible on every computer and operating system - even on simple terminals  - the user interface is kept extremely simple: You can enter commands in a command line and issue them with the Enter key . The requested website is then written line by line - like a teletype machine  - on the screen (hence the name " Line Mode Browser"). You cannot use the arrow keys to scroll up and down the displayed website, as with the Lynx , which was released about a year later - the cursor always remains in the command line, like in a Unix shell . Instead, you can use the Enter key (ie with an “empty command”) to scroll down one screen page and “ up” to scroll up again.

The links are numbered consecutively and the numbers are shown in square brackets after the link. A link can then be called up by typing in its number. You can scroll back with the command " back", new pages are called up with " go http://…" (it is sufficient to type the first letter in bold).

The presentation of the web pages is limited to the original version of HTML : only plain text is used, i.e. H. Bold italics or different font sizes are not possible. Instead, z. B. Headings written in capital letters, centered by inserted spaces and separated from the body text by empty lines .

history

Already in Tim Berners-Lee's first project proposal from March 1989, which subsequently became the World Wide Web project at CERN in Geneva ( Switzerland ), there is the requirement that web documents for everyone, regardless of computer and operating system must be legible. "Universal readership" (English: universal readership ) was retained and later as a fundamental concept. The first web browser , which Tim Berners-Lee began to develop in October 1990, only ran on NeXT computers. In order to remedy this deficiency, Nicola Pellow (then an intern at CERN) was commissioned to develop the Line Mode Browser in November 1990 .

At Christmas 1990 both browsers were ready for presentation. In August 1991, Berners-Lee announced the project and the Line Mode Browser in the newsgroup alt.hypertext . In October 1991, an installation of the Line Mode Browser was started as an anonymous Telnet service, so that you could now access the WWW with any Telnet-capable computer or terminal without having to install a browser yourself. In January 1992, the first stable version 1.1 of the Line Mode Browser was released for download after it had already been made available to the high-energy physics community (in a package with the first web server and a library ) .

The now general availability of the World Wide Web helped the project to generate wider interest within CERN and other laboratories such as B. DESY .

After the World Wide Web Consortium was founded in 1994, it also took over the further development of the Line Mode Browser. Today it no longer plays a role as a browser after Lynx established itself as the preferred plain text browser. As a sample application, however, it will continue to be maintained in the Libwww library.

literature

  • Tim Berners-Lee, Mark Fischetti: The Web Report. The creator of the World Wide Web on the limitless potential of the Internet . Econ, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-430-11468-3 (English: Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web .).
  • James Gillies, Robert Cailliau : The Cradle of the Web. The exciting history of the WWW . Dpunkt, Heidelberg 2001, ISBN 3-89864-108-2 (English: How the Web Was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web . 2000.).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ www.w3.org .
  2. ↑ dev.w3.org .
  3. ↑ Erik Inge Bolso: 2005 Text Mode Browser Roundup. In: Linux Journal. March 5, 2005, accessed July 24, 2010 .
  4. ↑ Tim Berners-Lee: Commands. CERN / W3C , November 3, 1992, accessed July 24, 2010 .
  5. ^ Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Cailliau: W3 Concepts. In: WorldWide Web Seminar. CERN / W3C, accessed on July 24, 2010 (English, 1991–1993): “The W3 principle of universal readership is that once information is available, it should be accessible from any type of computer […] and an (authorized) person should only have to use one simple program to access it. "
  6. ^ Tim Berners-Lee: Information Management: A Proposal. CERN / W3C, March 1989, accessed on August 1, 2010 (English): "Access is required to the same data from different types of system (VM / CMS, Macintosh, VAX / VMS, Unix)"
  7. ↑ Berners-Lee, Fischetti: Weaving the Web 1999, p. 29: “ […] we needed help. Ben Segal […] spotted a young intern named Nicola Pellow. ”
  8. ↑ Tim Berners-Lee: Re: Qualifiers on Hypertext links ... [Usenet message]. August 6, 1991, accessed on July 28, 2010 (English): "We have a prototype hypertext editor for the NeXT, and a browser for line mode terminals which runs on almost anything."
  9. ^ Robert Cailliau: A Little History of the World Wide Web. CERN / W3C, 1995, accessed on July 24, 2010 (English): “1990 / November: Nicola Pellow […] starts work; Christmas: Line mode browser and WorldWideWeb browser / editor demonstrable; 1991 / October: Anonymous telnet service started "
  10. ^ Tim Berners-Lee: What's new in '92. CERN / W3C, 1992, accessed on July 24, 2010 (English): "The new year starts with a release (version 1.1 - our first official " version1 "release) of the line mode browser"
  11. ^ Tim Berners-Lee ea: Change History of Line Mode Browser. CERN / W3C, accessed on July 24, 2010 (English): " January 1992 Version 1.1"
  12. ↑ How the web began. CERN, accessed on July 26, 2010 (English): "In 1991, an early WWW system was released to the high energy physics community via the CERN program library"
  13. ↑ World-Wide Web: Made at CERN. CERN, 1997, accessed July 24, 2010 .
  14. ↑ Gillies, Cailliau: How the Web Was Born 2000, p. 205
  15. ^ Bill Stewart ea: Web Browser History. In: Living Internet. Retrieved July 28, 2010 .