Line Mode Browser

One of the fundamental concepts of the "World Wide Web" projects at CERN was "universal readership".{{cite web|title=W3 Concepts|url=http://www.w3.org/Talks/General/Concepts.html|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=20 July 2005|author-link=Tim Berners-Lee|first=Tim|last=Berners-Lee|quote=The W3 principle of universal readership is that once information is available, it should be accessible from any type of computer, in any country, and an (authorized) person should only have to use one simple program to access it.}} In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee had already written the first browser, WorldWideWeb (later renamed to Nexus), but that program only worked on the proprietary software of NeXT computers, which were in limited use. Berners-Lee and his team could not port the WorldWideWeb application with its features—including the graphical WYSIWYG editor— to the more widely deployed X Window System, since they had no experience in programming it. The team recruited Nicola Pellow, a math student intern working at CERN,{{cite book|title=Weaving the Web|url=https://archive.org/details/weavingweborigin00bern_0|url-access=registration|year=1999|author-link=Tim Berners-Lee|first1=Tim|last1=Berners-Lee|first2=Mark|last2=Fischetti|page=[https://archive.org/details/weavingweborigin00bern_0/page/29 29]|publisher=HarperSanFrancisco|isbn=9780062515865|quote=[...] we needed help. Ben Segal [...] spotted a young intern named Nicola Pellow.}} to write a "passive browser" so basic that it could run on most computers of that time.

The name "Line Mode Browser" refers to the fact that, to ensure compatibility with the earliest computer terminals such as Teletype machines, the program only displayed text, (no images) and had only line-by-line text input (no cursor positioning).

Development started in November 1990 and the browser was demonstrated in December 1990.{{cite web|title=A Little History of the World Wide Web|url=http://www.w3.org/History.html|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=7 August 2010|author-link=Robert Cailliau|first=Robert|last=Cailliau|year=1995|quote=Technical Student Nicola Pellow (CN) joins and starts work on the line-mode browser.}}

The development environment used resources from the PRIAM project, a French language acronym for "PRojet Interdivisionnaire d'Assistance aux Microprocesseurs", a project to standardise microprocessor development across CERN.{{cite journal |title= PRIAM and VMEbus at CERN |last= Eck |first= C. |date= December 1985 |journal= VMEbus in Physics Conference |url= http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/17/041/17041317.pdf |access-date=26 July 2011 }}

The short development time produced software in a simplified dialect of the C programming language. The official standard ANSI C was not yet available on all platforms.

The Line Mode Browser was released to a limited audience on VAX, RS/6000 and Sun-4 computers in March 1991.{{cite web|last=Crémel|first=Nicole|title=A Little History of the World Wide Web|url=http://ref.web.cern.ch/ref/CERN/CNL/2001/001/www-history/|publisher=CERN|access-date=2 June 2010|date=5 April 2001|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071219114722/http://ref.web.cern.ch/ref/CERN/CNL/2001/001/www-history/|archive-date=19 December 2007|url-status=dead}} Before the release of the first publicly available version, it was integrated into the CERN Program Library (CERNLIB), used mostly by the High-Energy Physics-community. The first beta of the browser was released on 8 April 1991.{{cite book|first1=James|last1=Gillies|first2=Robert|last2=Cailliau|author-link2=Robert Cailliau|title=How the Web Was Born|year=2000|isbn=0-19-286207-3|pages=[https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill/page/345 345]|publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill/page/345}} Berners-Lee announced the browser's availability in August 1991 in the alt.hypertext newsgroup of Usenet.{{cite web|title=Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Cailliau, and the World Wide Web|url=http://www.livinginternet.com/w/wi_lee.htm#dev|access-date=26 July 2010|first=Bill|last=Stewart|publisher=Living Internet}}{{cite web|url=http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/1991/08/art-6484.txt|title=Re: Qualifiers on Hypertext links...|author-link=Tim Berners-Lee|first=Tim|last=Berners-Lee|date=6 August 1991|access-date=28 July 2010|quote=We have a prototype hypertext editor for the NeXT, and a browser for line mode terminals which runs on almost anything.}}

Users could use the browser from anywhere in the Internet through the telnet protocol to the info.cern.ch machine (which was also the first web server).

The spreading news of the World Wide Web in 1991 increased interest in the project at CERN and other laboratories such as DESY in Germany, and elsewhere throughout the world.{{cite book|first1=James|last1=Gillies|first2=Robert|last2=Cailliau|author-link2=Robert Cailliau|title=How the Web Was Born|isbn=0-19-286207-3|year=2000|page=[https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill/page/205 205]|publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill/page/205}}{{cite web|last=Berners-Lee|first=Tim|title= Public Domain CERN WWW Software |url= http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q2/0259.html |access-date=11 October 2010|date=7 May 1993}}

The first stable version, 1.1, was released in January 1992.The PC-NFS version (dated 92.01.16) for MS-DOS: [https://www.w3.org/2016/11/ftp-shutdown/info.html wwwpcnfs.zip] (NOTE: Firefox browsers may refuse to download the file, claiming that "file contains a virus or malware". VirusTotal [https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/1e1a16c01b613745ba1ec674d07b59030df8facc2ebdb07bd3983442951aa616/detection results].). Since version 1.2l, released in October 1992, the browser has used the common code library (later called libwww). The main developer, Pellow, started working on the MacWWW project, and both browsers began to share some source code.{{cite web|author-link=Tim Berners-Lee|last=Berners-Lee|first=Tim|date=3 November 1992|title=Macintosh Browser|url=http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/Macintosh/Overview.html|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=2 June 2010}} In the May 1993 World Wide Web Newsletter Berners-Lee announced that the browser was released into the public domain to reduce the work on new clients.{{cite web|title=May World-Wide Web News|url=http://www.w3.org/News/9305.html|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=7 June 2010|author-link=Tim Berners-Lee|first=Tim|last=Berners-Lee|date=May 1993}} On 21 March 1995, with the release of version 3.0, CERN put the full responsibility for maintaining the Line Mode Browser on the W3C. The Line Mode Browser and the libwww library are closely tied together—the last independent release of a separate browser component was in 1995, and the browser became part of libwww.{{cite web|last=Kreutzmann|first=Dr. Helge|title=WWW-Browsers for Linux|url=http://www.helgefjell.de/browser.php|access-date=3 June 2010|date=6 January 2010}}

The Agora World Wide Web email browser was based on the Line Mode Browser.{{cite web|last=Sendall|first=Mike|title=World Wide Web Clients|url=http://www.w3.org/Clients.html|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=10 August 2010|date=29 March 1995}} The Line Mode Browser was very popular in the beginning of the web, since it was the only web browser available for all operating systems. Statistics from January 1994 show that Mosaic had quickly changed the web browser landscape and only 2% of all World Wide Web users browsed by Line Mode Browser.{{cite web|title=History of the Web |url=http://www.w3c.rl.ac.uk/primers/history/origins.htm |publisher=Oxford Brookes University |access-date=20 November 2010 |year=2002 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100925204436/http://www.w3c.rl.ac.uk/primers/history/origins.htm |archive-date=25 September 2010 }} The new niche of text-only web browser was filled by Lynx, which made the Line Mode Browser largely irrelevant as a browser. One reason was that Lynx is much more flexible than the Line Mode Browser.{{cite book|last=Graham|first=Ian S.|title=The HTML Sourcebook: The Complete Guide to HTML|year=1995|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=0-471-11849-4|pages=[https://archive.org/details/htmlsourcebook00grah/page/323 323]|url=https://archive.org/details/htmlsourcebook00grah/page/323}} It then became a test application for the libwww.

The simplicity of the Line Mode Browser had several limitations.

The Line Mode Browser was designed to work on any operating system using what were called "dumb" terminals. The user interface had to be as simple as possible. The user began with a command-line interface specifying a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The requested web page was then printed line by line on the screen, like a teleprinter. Websites were displayed using the first versions of HTML. Formatting was achieved with capitalization, indentation, and new lines. Header elements were capitalized, centered and separated from the normal text by empty lines.{{cite web|title=Line Mode Browser|url=http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/LineMode/Browser.html|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=21 July 2010|date=3 November 1992}}

Navigation was not controlled by a pointing device such as a mouse or arrow keys, but by text commands typed into the program.{{cite web|title=Features_of_LM – /Talk_Feb-91|url=http://www.w3.org/Talks/Features_of_LM.html|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=10 August 2010|author-link=Nicola Pellow|first=Nicola|last=Pellow|date=February 1991}}

Numbers in brackets are displayed for each link; links are opened by typing the corresponding number into the program.

This led one journalist of the time to write: "The Web is a way of finding information by typing numbers."

The page scrolled down when an empty command (carriage return) was entered, and scrolled up with the command "u". The command "b" navigated backwards in history, and new pages were navigated with "g http://..." (for go to) and the URL.{{cite web|author-link=Tim Berners-Lee|first=Tim|last=Berners-Lee|title=Commands|url=http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/LineMode/Defaults/Commands.html|publisher=CERN/World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=24 July 2010|date=3 November 1992}}

The browser had no authoring functions, so pages could only be read and not edited. This was considered to be unfortunate by Robert Cailliau, one of the developers:

{{blockquote|"I think in retrospect the biggest mistake made in the whole project was the public release of the Line-Mode Browser. It gave the Internet hackers immediate access, but only from the point of view of the passive browser—no editing capabilities"{{cite web|last1=Petrie|first1=Charles|title=Interview Robert Cailliau on the WWW Proposal: "How It Really Happened."|url=http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/ic-cailliau|publisher=Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers|access-date=18 August 2010|author-link2=Robert Cailliau|first2=Robert|last2=Cailliau|date=November 1997|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110106041256/http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/ic-cailliau|archive-date=6 January 2011|url-status=dead}}}}

The Line Mode Browser was designed to be able to be platform independent. There are official ports to Apollo/Domain,{{cite web|url=http://www.slac.stanford.edu/BF/src/WWW/WWWLineMode/LineMode/Defaults/Installation.html|title=Installation|last=Berners-Le|first=Tim|access-date=16 November 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120111120246/http://www.slac.stanford.edu/BF/src/WWW/WWWLineMode/LineMode/Defaults/Installation.html|archive-date=11 January 2012|df=dmy-all}} IBM RS6000, DECStation/ultrix, VAX/VMS, VAX/Ultrix, MS-DOS,{{cite web|first=Bill|last=Stewart|title=Web Browser History|url=http://www.livinginternet.com/w/wi_browse.htm|publisher=Living Internet|access-date=2 June 2010}} Unix,{{cite web|title=List of Platforms for libwww|url=http://www.w3.org/Library/User/Platform/|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=9 June 2010|author-link=Henrik Frystyk Nielsen|first=Henrik Frystyk|last=Nielsen|date=1 April 1999}} Windows, Classic Mac OS, Linux, MVS,{{cite web|title=WWW people|url=http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/People.html#9|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=15 June 2010}} VM/CMS, FreeBSD,{{cite web|title=W3C libwww libraries|url=http://physionet.incor.usp.br/physiotools/libwww/|work=PhysioNet|publisher=University of São Paulo|access-date=30 May 2010|location=Cambridge, MA|date=19 March 2008|archive-date=18 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518083431/http://physionet.incor.usp.br/physiotools/libwww/|url-status=dead}} Solaris, and to macOS. The browser supports many protocols like File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Gopher, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), and Wide area information server (WAIS).{{cite web|title=Defining a News Server|url=http://www.w3.org/LineMode/User/NewsServer.html|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=28 June 2010|author-link1=Tim Berners-Lee|first1=Tim|last1=Berners-Lee|author-link2=Henrik Frystyk Nielsen|first2=Henrik Frystyk|last2=Nielsen|date=9 December 1996}}

Other features included rlogin{{cite web|title=What's new in '92|url=http://www.w3.org/News/9201.html|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=25 July 2010|author-link=Tim Berners-Lee|first=Tim|last=Berners-Lee|date=January 1992}} and telnet hyperlinks, Cyrillic support (added on 25 November 1994 in version 2.15), and ability to be set up as a proxy client.{{cite web|title=Libwww – the W3C Sample Code Library README|url=http://www.w3.org/README.html#Line|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=11 August 2010|author-link=Henrik Frystyk Nielsen|first=Henrik Frystyk|last=Nielsen|date=9 August 1997}} The browser could run as a background process and download files. The Line Mode Browser has had problems recognizing character entities, properly collapsing whitespace, and supporting tables and frames.{{cite web|last=Tobias|first=Daniel R.|title="Brand-X" Browsers – Alphabetical List: A-G|url=http://webtips.dan.info/brand-x/a-g.html|access-date=5 July 2010|date=4 April 2010}}

• History of the World Wide Web

{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

• {{cite book|last=Gay|first=Martin|title=Recent advances and issues in computers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sv7N_JKMPl8C&pg=PA121|year=2000|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-1-57356-227-0|page=121}}
• {{cite book|last1=Gillies|last2=Cailliau|first1=James|first2=Robert|author-link2=Robert Cailliau|title=How the Web was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web|date=15 January 2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-286207-3|url=https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill}}
• {{cite book|last1=December|last2=Randall|first1=John|first2=Neil|title=The World Wide Web unleashed|year=1994|publisher=Sams Publishing|isbn=1-57521-040-1|url=https://archive.org/details/worldwidewebunle00dece}}
• {{cite book|last=Kantor|first=Andrew|title=60-minute guide to the Internet: including the World-Wide Web|year=1995|publisher=IDG Books Worldwide|isbn=1-56884-342-9|url=https://archive.org/details/60minuteguidetoi00kant}}

• {{official website|http://www.w3.org/LineMode/}}
• [https://line-mode.cern.ch/ Line Mode Browser 2013 (CERN)]

{{gopher clients}}

{{Early web browsers}}

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{{W3C standards}}

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Category:Free software programmed in C

Category:World Wide Web Consortium

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