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{{Redirect|Nexus (browser)|the first web browser ever created|WorldWideWeb}}▼
{{short description|Command-line web browser}}
▲{{Redirect|Nexus (browser)|the first web browser ever created|WorldWideWeb}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2021}}
{{Infobox
| name = Line Mode Browser
| logo = LineModeBrowser.gif
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}}
| developer = [[World Wide Web Consortium|W3C]] / [[CERN]]
| released = 0.7, {{
| latest release version = 5.4.2
| latest release date = {{
| operating system = Cross-platform, same as [[Libwww]]
| genre = [[Web browser]]
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== History ==
One of the fundamental concepts of the "[[World Wide Web]]" projects at [[CERN]] was "[[Cross-platform|universal readership]]".<ref>{{cite web|title=W3 Concepts|url=http://www.w3.org/Talks/General/Concepts.html|publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]]|access-date=20 July 2005|author-link=Tim Berners-Lee|first=Tim|last=Berners-Lee|quote=The W3 principle of universal readership is that once information is available, it should be accessible from any type of computer, in any country, and an (authorized) person should only have to use one simple program to access it.}}</ref> In 1990, [[Tim Berners-Lee]] had already written the first browser, [[WorldWideWeb]] (later renamed to ''Nexus''), but that program only worked on the proprietary software of [[NeXT]] computers, which were in limited use.<ref name="tenyarscern" /> Berners-Lee and his team could not port the WorldWideWeb application with its features—including the graphical [[WYSIWYG]] editor— to the more widely deployed [[X Window System]], since they had no experience in programming it.<ref name="IEEE" /> The team recruited [[Nicola Pellow]], a math student intern working at CERN,<ref>{{cite book|title=Weaving the Web|url=https://archive.org/details/weavingweborigin00bern_0|url-access=registration|year=1999|author-link=Tim Berners-Lee|first1=Tim|last1=Berners-Lee|first2=Mark|last2=Fischetti|page=[https://archive.org/details/weavingweborigin00bern_0/page/29 29]|publisher=HarperSanFrancisco|isbn=9780062515865|quote=[...] we needed help. [[Ben Segal (computer scientist)|Ben Segal]] [...] spotted a young intern named Nicola Pellow.}}</ref> to write a "passive browser" so basic that it could run on most computers of that time.<ref name="tenyarscern" />
The name "Line Mode Browser" refers to the fact that, to ensure compatibility with the earliest computer terminals such as [[teleprinter|Teletype machines]], the program only displayed text, (no images) and had only line-by-line text input (no cursor positioning).<ref name="IEEE" /><ref name="living" />
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The development environment used resources from the PRIAM project, a French language acronym for "PRojet Interdivisionnaire d'Assistance aux Microprocesseurs", a project to standardise microprocessor development across CERN.<ref>{{cite journal |title= PRIAM and VMEbus at CERN |last= Eck |first= C. |date= December 1985 |journal= VMEbus in Physics Conference |url= http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/17/041/17041317.pdf |access-date=26 July 2011 }}</ref>
The short development time produced software in a simplified dialect of the [[C (programming language)|C programming language]]. The official standard [[ANSI C]] was not yet available on all platforms.<ref name="IEEE" />
The Line Mode Browser was released to a limited audience on [[VAX]], [[RS/6000]] and [[Sun-4]] computers in March 1991.<ref name="cern">{{cite web|last=Crémel|first=Nicole|title=A Little History of the World Wide Web|url=http://ref.web.cern.ch/ref/CERN/CNL/2001/001/www-history/|publisher=[[CERN]]|access-date=2 June 2010|date=5 April 2001|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071219114722/http://ref.web.cern.ch/ref/CERN/CNL/2001/001/www-history/|archive-date=19 December 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref> Before the release of the first publicly available version, it was integrated into the [[CERN Program Library]] (CERNLIB), used mostly by the [[Particle physics|High-Energy Physics]]-community.<ref name="howthewebbegan" /><ref name="newsletter92" /> The first [[Software development process#beta|beta]] of the browser was released on 8 April 1991.<ref>{{cite book|first1=James|last1=Gillies|first2=Robert|last2=Cailliau|author-link2=Robert Cailliau|title=How the Web Was Born|year=2000|isbn=0-19-286207-3|pages=[https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill/page/345 345]|publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill/page/345}}</ref> Berners-Lee announced the browser's availability in August 1991 in the ''alt.hypertext'' newsgroup of [[Usenet]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Cailliau, and the World Wide Web|url=http://www.livinginternet.com/w/wi_lee.htm#dev|access-date=26 July 2010|first=Bill|last=Stewart|publisher=Living Internet}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/1991/08/art-6484.txt|title=Re: Qualifiers on Hypertext links...|author-link=Tim Berners-Lee|first=Tim|last=Berners-Lee|date=6 August 1991|access-date=28 July 2010|quote=We have a prototype hypertext editor for the NeXT, and a browser for line mode terminals which runs on almost anything.}}</ref>
Users could use the browser from anywhere in the [[Internet]] through the [[telnet]] protocol to the ''info.cern.ch'' machine (which was also the first web server).
The spreading news of the World Wide Web in 1991 increased interest in the project at CERN and other laboratories such as [[DESY]] in [[Germany]], and elsewhere throughout the world.<ref name="tenyarscern" /><ref>{{cite book|first1=James|last1=Gillies|first2=Robert|last2=Cailliau|author-link2=Robert Cailliau|title=How the Web Was Born|isbn=0-19-286207-3|year=2000|page=[https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill/page/205 205]|publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill/page/205}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Berners-Lee|first=Tim|title= Public Domain CERN WWW Software |url= http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q2/0259.html |access-date=11 October 2010|date=7 May 1993}}</ref>
The first stable version, 1.1, was released in January 1992.<ref name="cern" /><ref>The [[
The [[Agora (web browser)|Agora]] World Wide Web email browser was based on the Line Mode Browser.<ref>{{cite web|last=Sendall|first=Mike|title=World Wide Web Clients|url=http://www.w3.org/Clients.html|publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]]|access-date=10 August 2010|date=29 March 1995}}</ref> The Line Mode Browser was very popular in the beginning of the web, since it was the only web browser available for all operating systems. Statistics from January 1994 show that [[Mosaic (web browser)|Mosaic]] had quickly changed the web browser landscape and only 2% of all [[World Wide Web]] users browsed by Line Mode Browser.<ref>{{cite web|title=History of the Web |url=http://www.w3c.rl.ac.uk/primers/history/origins.htm |publisher=[[Oxford Brookes University]] |access-date=20 November 2010 |year=2002 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100925204436/http://www.w3c.rl.ac.uk/primers/history/origins.htm |archive-date=25 September 2010 }}</ref> The new niche of text-only web browser was filled by [[Lynx (web browser)|Lynx]], which made the Line Mode Browser largely irrelevant as a browser. One reason was that Lynx is much more flexible than the Line Mode Browser.<ref name="HTMLsource">{{cite book|last=Graham|first=Ian S.|title=The HTML Sourcebook: The Complete Guide to HTML|year=1995|publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]]|isbn=0-471-11849-4|pages=[https://archive.org/details/htmlsourcebook00grah/page/323 323]|url=https://archive.org/details/htmlsourcebook00grah/page/323}}</ref> It then became a test application for the libwww.
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== Features ==
The Line Mode Browser was designed to be able to be [[Cross-platform#Platform-
Other features included [[rlogin]]<ref name="newsletter92">{{cite web|title=What's new in '92|url=http://www.w3.org/News/9201.html|publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]]|access-date=25 July 2010|author-link=Tim Berners-Lee|first=Tim|last=Berners-Lee|date=January 1992}}</ref> and [[telnet]]<ref name="newsletter92" /> [[hyperlink]]s, [[Cyrillic script|Cyrillic]] support (added on 25 November 1994 in version 2.15),<ref name="linemodechangehistory" /> and ability to be set up as a [[proxy server|proxy]] client.<ref>{{cite web|title=Libwww – the W3C Sample Code Library README|url=http://www.w3.org/README.html#Line|publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]]|access-date=11 August 2010|author-link=Henrik Frystyk Nielsen|first=Henrik Frystyk|last=Nielsen|date=9 August 1997}}</ref> The browser could run as a [[background process]] and download files.<ref name="HTMLsource" /> The Line Mode Browser has had problems recognizing [[Character entity reference|character entities]], properly collapsing [[Whitespace character|whitespace]], and supporting tables and [[Framing (World Wide Web)|frames]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Tobias|first=Daniel R.|title="Brand-X" Browsers – Alphabetical List: A-G|url=http://webtips.dan.info/brand-x/a-g.html|access-date=5 July 2010|date=4 April 2010}}</ref>
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