Worlds First Website Just Turned 25 Years Old - And It's Still Live

25 years ago the first website was launched by a scientist at CERN.

You can visit the the very first website byclicking here

Don't expect much besides an instructional text with hyperlinks with information on how to access the "World Wide Web"

But this is the site that spawned your daily browsing habits, for better or worse. (Sorry Al Gore)

A mere 25 years and we now live in a world where you can't take a walk in the park without your phone vibrating, or beeping, or ringing. Your on call 24/7 and the excuse of "I didn't check my phone" completely died just a few short years ago.

But alas, here we are today and for the first time in history our natural sense of curiosity and desire to explore has been captured and enslaved by a pocket sized screen.

Goodbye social networking via bonfires.

link to news article

On 20 December 1990, Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at the CERN research facility in Switzerland, turned on the world’s first website.

Hosted by the World Wide Web (where "www" comes from) on Berners-Lee's NeXT computer, the site was used internally by CERN scientists until the whole server was opened up to anyone with an Internet connection in August 1991.

The website itself is like a 'self-help' guide to the web - it tells you how to access other people's documents and how to set up your own server. In 2013, CERN made an effort to return it to its original address, and you can visit it here now, in stripped-down form.

As Berners-Lee explained in his initial proposal for the World Wide Web project, clarity of words was more important than fancy graphics: "Where facilities already exist, we aim to allow graphics interchange, but in this project, we concentrate on the universal readership for text, rather than on graphics."

There are now more than 4 billion webpages and just under a billion domains, but none are quite so special as the pages that started it all. Max Slater-Robins over at Business Insider has rounded up some of the key players, and let’s just say web design has come a long way since 1990.

Produced by Martijn Koster at CERN in 1993, Aliweb was the world’s first search engine. While it allowed early web users to index their sites via keywords and written descriptions, it never really took off, and had a relatively short lifespan.

Ghost

Very cool! And what a historical look into our past. It's amazing how a tiny bit of coding has changed the entire human race's ability to communicate and express themselves.

I'm very proud to have been alive for the entire onset of the Internet and the very first website.

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for Posting this! 25 yrs already, They had the old BBS boards back then and still do in some places.

I was in 7th grade on a TRS 80 and able to connect to other 'networks' using a phone handset and a cradle that looked like 2 small speakers. You had to dial to connect, which is where 'dial up' comes from, even before dial up internet speed, say on AOL. I was at a private school at the time, I don't think every school had computer class where you could do this. I remember making a hang man game in Basic.

a reply to: reldra

I also had a TRS-80, with a cassette player attached.

originally posted by: abe froman
a reply to: reldra

I also had a TRS-80, with a cassette player attached.

I wish I had owned one myself I was just able to use the one at school.

I don;t remember being able to connect a cassette player to it, unless you are making a joke.

But , we had BBS servers that served the same purpose (yes even conspiracy sites) long before that . Since we had very narrow local call ranges , anyone here remember how we got around the tremendous long distance charges for downloading that 2k file ?
S&F for the memories..

originally posted by: Gothmog
But , we had BBS servers that served the same purpose (yes even conspiracy sites) long before that . Since we had very narrow local call ranges , anyone here remember how we got around the tremendous long distance charges for downloading that 2k file ?

I remember a BBS that talked about Dungeons and Dragons, it was ran by TSR. My name on it was Reldra. I used that name as a player in the game. Later, more than one D&D novel had the name reldra as a minor character. I posted that on a modern TSR website. I could have sued. I didn't.

LOL, I don't remember how one got around that. I was using other people's computers though.

originally posted by: Gothmog
But , we had BBS servers that served the same purpose (yes even conspiracy sites) long before that . Since we had very narrow local call ranges , anyone here remember how we got around the tremendous long distance charges for downloading that 2k file ?
S&F for the memories..

Fido echo

Here is one for ya The Temple of The Screaming Electron out of San Fran...

originally posted by: abe froman
a reply to: reldra

I also had a TRS-80, with a cassette player attached.

Apple IIE with 2 floppy drives and a color monitor hooked into a 300 baud (smart) modem. I use to love playing the daily turn base games like Trade Wars

originally posted by: reldra

originally posted by: Gothmog
But , we had BBS servers that served the same purpose (yes even conspiracy sites) long before that . Since we had very narrow local call ranges , anyone here remember how we got around the tremendous long distance charges for downloading that 2k file ?

I remember a BBS that talked about Dungeons and Dragons, it was ran by TSR. My name on it was Reldra. I used that name as a player in the game. Later, more than one D&D novel had the name reldra as a minor character. I posted that on a modern TSR website. I could have sued. I didn't.

LOL, I don't remember how one got around that. I was using other people's computers though.

First , yes I remember . That server was actually located in Seattle. And dont get me started with D&D . I have a still shrink-wrapped copy of Chainmail , Swords and Spells , and Eldritch Wizardry.

We got around it by asking the person still in our local distance , but yet far enough to dial the next area without charges. Then they would ask the next person. This would go on for 25 hops with each person in line having to download the file in their turn. It would take weeks for me to get a file from that server.

originally posted by: reldra
My name on it was Reldra. I used that name as a player in the game. Later, more than one D&D novel had the name reldra as a minor character. I posted that on a modern TSR website. I could have sued. I didn't.

My online names were very unique and today I can't get on anything anymore using them since they seem to be quickly taken.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: Gothmog
But , we had BBS servers that served the same purpose (yes even conspiracy sites) long before that . Since we had very narrow local call ranges , anyone here remember how we got around the tremendous long distance charges for downloading that 2k file ?
S&F for the memories..

Fido echo

Here is one for ya The Temple of The Screaming Electron out of San Fran...

You betcha. And a friend and I ran a conspiracy site Wildcat BBS setting on Apache server before 90 .

originally posted by: Gothmog
First , yes I remember . That server was actually located in Seattle. And dont get me started with D&D . I have a still shrink-wrapped copy of Chainmail , Swords and Spells , and Eldritch Wizardry.

Most of my books say 1978..hehe we use to play the whole weekend nonstop without sleep...

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: reldra

originally posted by: Gothmog
But , we had BBS servers that served the same purpose (yes even conspiracy sites) long before that . Since we had very narrow local call ranges , anyone here remember how we got around the tremendous long distance charges for downloading that 2k file ?

I remember a BBS that talked about Dungeons and Dragons, it was ran by TSR. My name on it was Reldra. I used that name as a player in the game. Later, more than one D&D novel had the name reldra as a minor character. I posted that on a modern TSR website. I could have sued. I didn't.

LOL, I don't remember how one got around that. I was using other people's computers though.

First , yes I remember . That server was actually located in Seattle. And dont get me started with D&D . I have a still shrink-wrapped copy of Chainmail , Swords and Spells , and Eldritch Wizardry.

We got around it by asking the person still in our local distance , but yet far enough to dial the next area without charges. Then they would ask the next person. This would go on for 25 hops with each person in line having to download the file in their turn. It would take weeks for me to get a file from that server.

I bought a sealed "Keep on the Boarderlands" on Ebay last year.

Yep, the BBS was really slow.

I didn't show up until the AOL days of the mid nineties. Oh how entertaining. It was all just home mad web pages, message boards, and chat rooms where everyone was all like size=5]ASL!!! and then just spewing the most vile insults and expletives.

It was fun when we all could make our own little free web pages. Facebook and myspace killed that, or some would simply say consolidated it and killed some imagination in our personal web pages.

originally posted by: Gothmog
You betcha. And a friend and I ran a conspiracy site Wildcat BBS setting on Apache server before 90 .

The Temple of The Screaming Electron would be even crazy by today's standards. They had everything controversial like how to build a dirty nuke in a 3 story building, all the chemical cook books, the religion of BoB, drilling holes into your head to open up you thinking abilities... crazy stuff that would most likely get you in jail today..hehe

Wildcat sound very familiar.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: reldra
My name on it was Reldra. I used that name as a player in the game. Later, more than one D&D novel had the name reldra as a minor character. I posted that on a modern TSR website. I could have sued. I didn't.

My online names were very unique and today I can't get on anything anymore using them since they seem to be quickly taken.

reldra is not normally taken. I did have [email protected] when gmail first started and you needed an invitation. One day, I couldn't log in. After many mails, Gmail would not help me. now I have reldra10. GRRR. I am going to give it another try. They told me someone else had it. !

a reply to: reldra

No joke, cassette tapes were like disk drives back in the day.

originally posted by: reldra
I have reldra10. GRRR. I am going to give it another try. They told me someone else had it. !

I have Xtro and Xtrozero for 30 years but today it would be Xtro37