hultberg.org: Mannes blog

Ten years ago this April: Mosaic saw the light of day

Time flies. Browsing the web as we know it has been around for ten years this month. Feels like only yesterday, all grey pages and we were totally fascinated when we could make bulleted lists...

Mosaic was released in April 1993. That was the starting point of Netscape, which then led on to Microsoft setting its sights for the open Internet as the platform for communication and dumping the proprietary Microsoft Network (I believe it was called, sounds innovative enough...).

"It was an accelerator for the whole Internet," said Larry Smarr, the former director of the computing center. "It sort of took the Internet to the next level of capability."

Well, it sure set me on the track to nerd-dom. ;) Better yet: it still fascinates me every day.

USATODAY.com - Mosaic: A decade ago, the click heard round the world

Before that it was all WAIS, Gopher, UseNet News, IRC, FSP... Suddenly it all came together in a simple to use and accesible way. I guess it became the glue that started gathering the critical mass.

I wonder however, as I recall we were using X-Mosaic before April 1993. I definitely think we had a web server running at the university by then, the one I and Kiwi later took responsibility of. The memories are blurred though. ;)

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