Skills: noneConcepts: history of the Web, Internet culture, the contributions of Vannevar Bush, JCR Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Tim Berners-Lee, evolution from concept to product

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The Web – vision, prototype and product

Where does this topic fit?

• Internet concepts– Applications– Technology– Implications

• Internet skills– Application development– Content creation– User skills

The invention of the Web

Vision1945

Prototype1960s

Product1990s

Vannevar Bush, the vision

Vannevar Bush Artist’s conception of a “memex”

Doug Engelbart, the research prototype

• The mouse• Hyperlinks• Video conferencing• WYSIWYG word processor• Multi-window user interface• Shared documents• Shared database• Documents with images & text• Keyword search• Instant messaging• Synchronous collaboration• Asynchronous collaboration• Chord keyboard

Watch a few video clips

The Demo, 1968

The Alto personal computer and the ARPAnet

J. C. R. Licklider

Gopher

Tim Berners-Lee, the product

Early demo page

Announcing the Web

The Internet culture

Summary

Vision1945

Prototype1960s

Product1990s

1. Which was invented first, the Web or the Internet?2. We mentioned Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart, J.C.R. Licklider and Tim Berners-

Lee in this presentation. Which would you say were visionaries, prototype builders and product invetors?

3. In your own words, what were the contributions of Bush, Engelbart and Berners-Lee?

4. Engelbart knew of Bush’s vision and Berners-Lee knew of Engelbart’s work – how did they learn of each other?

5. Can you think of examples of the sort of sharing and collaboration that dominated the early Internet culture that are still with us today?

6. Why did Berners-Lee make the effort to invent the Web? What was his motivation and reward?

7. What is the economic value of the Web? Is the Web more valuable to individuals, organizations, and society than Wikipedia? Microsoft Office? The Apache Web server program? The Los Angeles freeway system? The Interstate Highway system?

8. How can one evaluate infrastructure like the Web or the Los Angeles freeways? 9. What would have happened to the Web if CERN had decided to copyright and sell

the software and not authorize Berners-Lee to share it freely?

Self-study questions

Resources• Highlight video snippets from The Demo: http://

www.sri.com/news/storykits/1968video.html• Complete Video of The Demo: http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html• More information on Engelbart’s work: http

://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/MouseSitePg1.html• http://www.sri.com/news/storykits/Engelbart.html• Tim Berners-Lee: http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/• The original Web proposal: http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html• Vannevar Bush, As We May Think: http

://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/as-we-may-think/3881/• The value of contributed content: http://

cis471.blogspot.com/search/label/contributed%20content• Honolulu Community College dinosaur exhibit: http://

honolulu.hawaii.edu/dinos/dinos.1.html• Before the Altair: The history of personal computing http://

som.csudh.edu/fac/lpress/articles/hist.htm• Licklider and Taylor, The Computer as a Communication Device, reprinted from Science and

Technology, April 1968: and J. C. R. Licklider, Man-Computer Symbiosis January 1992 IEEE Annals of the History of Computing , Volume 14 Issue 1 http://memex.org/licklider.pdf

• First USENET News post describing the WWW: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.hypertext/msg/395f282a67a1916c