When working with or building something, it’s always interesting to take a moment to look at how things used to be. In this case, it’s the World Wide Web (W3), what you may commonly know as “The Internet”. Whatever it is now, it is far beyond what it’s creators had ever imagined it would be.

The World Wide Web (originally named Mesh) began as a CERN project called ENQUIRE, initiated by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau in 1990. It was a project that they imagined “that two people for 6 to 12 months would be sufficient for this phase of the project” (The original proposal of the WWW).

The Original Model

The First Public Website

Can be found here.

The Original Documents

Page 1 of Proposal
Page 2 of Proposal

Nowadays, the internet is a never ending project consisting of hundreds of millions of people around the world, sharing information, creating services, generating immense revenue, and connecting people all over the world. It is no understatement that the internet has changed the world and advanced the human race by leaps and bounds. They say that having Google handy increases a person’s IQ by at least 20.

Stylesheets

For you designers out there, take this look at one of the original proposals for stylesheets. While I’m happy that it wasn’t implemented, it’s still very interesting to see. The original post can be found here. For your viewing pleasure, here’s the excerpt:

Here is a sample stylesheet:

(HEAD,BODY fontSize=normal
BGColor=white
FGColor=black
(H1 fontSize=largest
BGColor=red
FGColor=white)
(H2 fontSize=large)
(P)
(A FGColor=red)
(CMD,KBD,SCREEN,LISTING,EXAMPLE fontFamily=fixed)
(BOLD,EMPH,STRONG fontWeight=bold)
(I fontSlant=italic)
(ADDRESS
(P fontSlant=italic))
(OL
(LI numStyle=roman
(LI numStyle=number
(LI numStyle=alpha)
)
)
)
(FOOTNOTE fontSize=small
(P)
)
)

Got any other interesting artifacts from the creation of the internet? Post ‘em!

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