Line Mode Browser: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 01:30, 21 May 2021

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The '''Line Mode Browser''' (also known as LMB,<ref>{{cite web|title=How can I download a Document?|url=http://www.w3.org/Library/FAQ/DownLoad.html|publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]]|access-date=10 August 2010|author-link=Henrik Frystyk Nielsen|first=Henrik Frystyk|last=Nielsen|date=April 1995|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120112140848/http://www.w3.org/Library/FAQ/DownLoad.html|archive-date=12 January 2012|df=dmy-all}}</ref> WWWLib, or just www<ref>{{cite web|last=Bolso|first=Erik Inge|title=2005 Text Mode Browser Roundup|url=http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8148|work=[[Linux Journal]]|access-date=5 August 2010|date=8 March 2005}}</ref>) is the second [[web browser]] ever created.<ref name="leefaq">{{cite web |last=Berners-Lee |first=Tim |title=Frequently asked questions – What were the first browsers?|url=http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html#browser|publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]]|access-date=26 July 2011 |author-link=Tim Berners-Lee }}</ref>

The browser was the first demonstrated to be [[porting|portable]] to several different [[operating system]]s.<ref name="tenyarscern">{{cite web|title=Ten Years Public Domain for the Original Web Software|url=http://tenyears-www.web.cern.ch/tenyears-www/Story/WelcomeStory.html|publisher=[[CERN]]|access-date=21 July 2005|date=30 April 2003}}</ref><ref name="howthewebbegan">{{cite web |title=How the web began|url=http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/About/WebStory-en.html|publisher=[[CERN]]|access-date=25 July 2010|year=2008}}</ref>

Operated from a simple [[command-line interface]], it could be widely used on many computers and [[computer terminal]]s throughout the [[Internet]].

The browser was developed starting in 1990, and then supported by the [[World Wide Web Consortium]] (W3C) as an example and [[Testbed|test application]] for the [[libwww]] [[library (computing)|library]].<ref name="startpage">{{cite web|title=WWW – The Libwww Line Mode Browser|url=http://www.w3.org/LineMode/|publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]]|access-date=9 June 2010|author-link=Henrik Frystyk Nielsen|first=Henrik Frystyk|last=Nielsen|date=4 May 1998}}</ref>

== 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|firstfirst1=Tim|lastlast1=Berners-Lee|first2=Mark|last2=Fischetti|page=[https://archive.org/details/weavingweborigin00bern_0/page/29 29]|quote=[...] we needed help. 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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don't know at the moment how to include this in the timeline (and what the abbr. mean)

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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 |workjournal= 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]|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>

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The browser had no authoring functions, so pages could only be read and not edited. This was considered to be unfortunate by [[Robert Cailliau]], one of the developers:

{{blockquote|"I think in retrospect the biggest mistake made in the whole project was the public release of the Line-Mode Browser. It gave the Internet hackers immediate access, but only from the point of view of the passive browser—no editing capabilities"<ref name="IEEE">{{cite web|last1=Petrie|first1=Charles|title=Interview Robert Cailliau on the WWW Proposal: "How It Really Happened."|url=http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/ic-cailliau|publisher=[[Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers]]|access-date=18 August 2010|author-link2=Robert Cailliau|first2=Robert|last2=Cailliau|date=November 1997|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110106041256/http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/ic-cailliau|archive-date=6 January 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref>}}

== Features ==

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== Further reading ==

*{{cite book|last=Gay|first=Martin|title=Recent advances and issues in computers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sv7N_JKMPl8C&pg=PA121|date=1 June 2000|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-1-57356-227-0|page=121}}

*{{cite book|lastlast1=Gillies|last2=Cailliau|firstfirst1=James|first2=Robert|author-link2=Robert Cailliau|title=How the Web was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web|date=15 January 2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-286207-3|url=https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill}}

*{{cite book|lastlast1=December|last2=Randall|firstfirst1=John|first2=Neil|title=The World Wide Web unleashed|year=1994|publisher=Sams Publishing|isbn=1-57521-040-1|url=https://archive.org/details/worldwidewebunle00dece}}

*{{cite book|last=Kantor|first=Andrew|title=60-minute guide to the Internet: including the World-Wide Web|year=1995|publisher=IDG Books Worldwide|isbn=1-56884-342-9|url=https://archive.org/details/60minuteguidetoi00kant}}