Developer(s) | Robert Cailliau, Nicola Pellow [1] |
---|---|
Initial release | December 1992 [2] |
Final release | 1.03 [3] |
Written in | THINK C [1] |
Operating system | Classic Mac OS [1] System 6.0.5, [4] System 7 [4] |
Available in | English |
Type | Web browser |
MacWWW, also known as Samba, [5] [6] [7] is an early minimalist web browser from 1992 meant to run on Macintosh computers. It was the first web browser for the classic Mac OS platform, and the first for any non-Unix operating system. MacWWW tries to emulate the design of WorldWideWeb. [5] Unlike modern browsers it opens each link in a new window only after a double-click. [3] It was a commercial product from CERN and cost 50 European Currency Units [6]
The browser is no longer available from its original ftp location, but can still be downloaded from mirrors. [A 1]
It was written at CERN by Robert Cailliau and later Nicola Pellow helped with the development. [5] [7] Pellow worked originally on the Line Mode Browser and both browsers shared some parts of the source code after her switching. [1] Pre-alpha version were available, but this version worked only on "coliur [sic] mac but not on big black and white ones it seems." [2]
Version 1.00 was released on 12 May 1993 with the commentary: "We know there is much to be improved, but it works well on system 7 and system 6.0.5". [4]
Clearly, this is a browser of limited usefulness, and one that was overtaken so quickly by every other graphical browser that loading it today is almost like stepping back into the dark ages. Interesting, but only as a curiosity. [3]
The MacWWW which was a minimalist browser displayed only text, no images nor lists. [8] [3]
According to critics, within a year the browser became obsolete because Mosaic and MacWeb had much more features, for example MacWWW showed no loading status. [3] Without the mouse and MacOS support MacWWW would be a text-mode browser. [3]
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the meaning and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScript.
HyperCard is a software application and development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web.
Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. He is a professorial research fellow at the University of Oxford and a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system that enables information sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond IT specialists and hobbyists. It allows documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet according to specific rules of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
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WorldWideWeb is the first web browser and web page editor. It was discontinued in 1994. It was the first WYSIWYG HTML editor.
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Robert Cailliau is a Belgian informatics engineer, computer scientist and author who proposed the first (pre-www) hypertext system for CERN in 1987 and collaborated with Tim Berners-Lee on the World Wide Web from before it got its name. He designed the historical logo of the WWW, organized the first International World Wide Web Conference at CERN in 1994 and helped transfer Web development from CERN to the global Web consortium in 1995. Together with James Gillies, Cailliau wrote How the Web Was Born, the first book-length account of the origins of the World Wide Web.
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Libwww is an early World Wide Web software library providing core functions for web browsers, implementing HTML, HTTP, and other technologies. Tim Berners-Lee, at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), released libwww in late 1992, comprising reusable code from the first browsers.
Nicola Pellow is an English mathematician and information scientist who was one of the nineteen members of the WWW Project at CERN working with Tim Berners-Lee. She joined the project in November 1990, while an undergraduate maths student enrolled on a sandwich course at Leicester Polytechnic. Pellow recalled having little experience with programming languages, "... apart from using a bit of Pascal and FORTRAN as part of my degree course."
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A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. It further provides for the capture or input of information which may be returned to the presenting system, then stored or processed as necessary. The method of accessing a particular page or content is achieved by entering its address, known as a Uniform Resource Identifier or URI. This may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content. Hyperlinks present in resources enable users easily to navigate their browsers to related resources. A web browser can also be defined as an application software or program designed to enable users to access, retrieve and view documents and other resources on the Internet.
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