On Friday the 13th of March, the World Wide Web (WWW) marked the 20th anniversary of its birth.

Not Al Gore?

Its inception dates back to 13 March 1989, when computer scientist, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, popularly known as CERN Laboratory, presented a paper containing means and methods by which particles physics scientists could easily share and find out essential electronics documents.

The inception of the internet

At that time, the use of internet was limited to defense and academics domains only and communication was wholly text-based, banking on general newsgroups, along with remote Telnet chat to send messages.

No home computers yet

Before this date no one would have thought about applying for an Online Cash Advance to buy a computer so he could get in on the new act.

The creation of the web by British computer software genius Tim Berners-Lee and other scientists at the European particle physics laboratory (CERN) paved the way for the Internet explosion which has changed our daily lives.

The original idea

Berners-Lee and his colleagues originally set up the system to allow thousands of scientists around the world to stay in touch. “It was really in the air, something that had to happen sooner or later,” said former CERN systems engineer Cailliau, who teamed up with Berners-Lee.

Http begins

They drew up the global hypertext language – which is behind the “http” on website addresses – and came up with the first web browser in October 1990, which looks remarkably similar to the ones used today.

“Everything that people talk about today, blogs and so on, that’s what we were doing in 1990, there’s no difference. That’s how we started,” says Cailliau.

From 1991, the WWW technology was made available for wider use on the Internet and the organization made a landmark decision two years later not to levy royalties.

WWW today

Some of us call it the savior of the world, others call it a monster. There are still those who refer to it as ‘state of the art time wasting’ and there are many who make their entire living from it, whether it is writing articles or designing websites.

For me it is the source of all knowledge. I have a large reference library of encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases and other books and I haven’t opened one of them for some years now. I find whatever I need on the internet. The biggest problem of all is that I have to force myself to stand up once in a while to ease my back. There is simply no reason to get up any more.

And the sooner someone comes up with a computer with a coffee making attachment the better.

The good, the bad and the ugly

WWW features all of the above and from time to time one hears wails of distress when a child wanders where he or she shouldn’t. One can also hear shouts of joy when someone finds something that has been eluding him for months or years. Many are the grunts of satisfaction at successfully managing a bank or some other complicated transaction.

All in all, it’s heaven sent and it gets better all the time.

Happy birthday dear internet! And many more!