Conventional wisdom has it that Mosaic was the first graphical web browser. Even though Mosaic - the basis for Netscape - certainly kickstarted the web revolution, it wasn't the first graphical web browser at all - that honour goes to Erwise, developed by four Finnish college students in 1991. It was more advanced than Mosaic, ran on the X Window System, but didn't catch on in the end. The four developers recently gave an interview detailing Erwise and its history.
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2009-02-02
Link typo:
a hef=...</a
should be:
a href=...</a
For anyone interested, the address the link would take you to, if working (all one line):
http://www.xconomy.com/national/2009/03/03/the-greatest-internet-pi...
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2006-01-25
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It's worth knowing where all the stuff we take for granted today originally came from. Especially in IT these "history lessons", which I often consider basic knowledge, are a good chance to invest some time to learn something new. As usual, it's possible to see that several concepts that the oh so clever marketing guys present to the public as "all new", "just invented" or "milestone" often have already been around for a while.
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2005-07-06
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Proudly presenting: The Not Trolling response!
Marc Andreessen was one of the original developers of Mosaic, and was funded by Jim Clark (SGI) to develop Mosaic into Netscape. In fact, Netscape Navigator 1.0 was little more than a rebranded NCSA Mosaic. Same code base.
Spyglass, Inc. was founded by NCSA to commercialize NCSA stuff. They developed their own "fork" of Mosaic. Microsoft licensed Spyglass Mosaic to create Internet Explorer. In fact, Internet Explorer 1.0 was little more than a rebranded Spyglass Mosaic. Same code base.
In a roundabout sort of way, both IE and Netscape were based on the original NCSA Mosaic. Of course, by a few versions later, there was probably very little of the original code left, as evidenced by the horrible incompatibility of Netscape and IE all through the 90s.
Member since:2005-11-13
And before Netscape Navigator hit 1.0, it was called 'Mosaic Netscape'. When I worked at an ISP way back when, we used to give customers a couple of floppies that included Trumpet Winsock for Win3.1 and the 0.9 version of Mosaic Netscape. You can even see a screenshot of it in the Wikipedia Netscape article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_Navigator
Member since:
2007-11-13
It should probably be pointed out that the world's very first web browser, the browser that Tim Berners-Lee created the WWW on, was called WorldWideWeb, and was graphical. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb) It was, however, available only on NeXT computers, and was virtually unknown to the public. Apparently even to this day, if articles like this are still getting published.
Edited 2009-03-04 01:43 UTC
Member since:
2006-09-10
Depressing.
Not at all. What about counter question: "How many good ideas were not even born because its potential medium (human being) was rich enough and had no need for any vision?"
A good example is Sablikova, a speedskater. There's no speedskater stadium or any other suitable facility in Czech Republic. She was forced to train her style on some kind of modified door, somehow. Really, classic wooden door! Maybe thanks to this insufficient conditions, support and whatever, her dream and need for achievement was even stronger.. at the end she won gold medal in Nagano and other high appraised events. On top of that, she introduced a new technique in speedskatering which is now imitating by others. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sablikova
Member since:2006-01-16
How can you train speed skating on a door? Must be a very long door then...
As I heard if you don't have a stadium you have to wait for winter and go on the next lake.
I guess that's what she probably did.
Still you are right: Challenges are important for humans. Some of the greatest achievments were made by people facing tough challenges.
Member since:2006-09-10
As I heard if you don't have a stadium you have to wait for winter and go on the next lake.
I would say she used the door to train the technique during summertime. I was surprised too when I heard it for the first time :-)
Member since:2007-03-26
Speed skating on a wooden door?
You sure you got your information right?
Even the wikipedia article you linked threw up no results when I searched for the text 'door' or 'wood'.
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Creative to use a door, but the dimensions are about right so why not :-)
Take a plain door with smooth paint or varnish surface, put it flat on the floor. Nail two two-by-fours on top of each other along the top and bottom edges of the door. Put on some socks giving you low friction to the door surface. Stand sideways on the door, and use your legs to push you from one two-by-four side to the other. You have now an easy way to simulate the skating motion.
Member since:2005-11-11
Finally someone with a clue instead of the endless "a door is too small to skate on" comments 
It would work like the thing on the right side of this page: http://www.rosiewear.com/training_tools.shtml
A door would be a cheaper way to do the same thing, and not a bad idea if it's what you are stuck with.
Member since:2007-03-26
Ahhh. Now it all makes sense.
I know this thread has gone somewhat off topic, but I for one enjoyed reading about this.
Thank you
MamiyaOtaru:
I found your opening sentence a little trolling.
I think you'll find that myself and the others who commented "a door is too small to skate on" only did so enquiring how the door was used rather than boasting any kind of knowledge on the subject (as you seemed to suggest we were).
So it's not all that surprising our posts were clueless given the whole point of our posts were to establish the use of the door!
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2006-07-12
I thought Nexus (previously known as WorldWideWeb) was the first browser. As the first release of Erwise was 1992 actually and Nexus was released for NeXT machines in end of year 1991. But i might have learned it wrongly.
Update:
" The first successful build (of Nexus) was completed on Christmas Day, 1990" and Erwise was released on April 1992.
Edited 2009-03-04 18:27 UTC
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2007-04-13
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This one : http://xanadu.com/tech/ ?
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