The Trojan Room coffee pot was a coffee machine located in the Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, England. Created in 1991 by Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky, it was migrated from their laboratory network to the web in 1993, becoming the world's first webcam.
To save people working in the building the disappointment of finding the coffee machine empty after making the trip to the room, a camera was set up providing a live picture of the coffee pot to all desktop computers on the office network. After the camera was connected to the Internet a few years later, the coffee pot gained international renown as a feature of the fledgling World Wide Web, until being retired in 2001. [1] [2]
The 128×128 px greyscale camera was connected to the laboratory's local network through a video capture card fitted on an Acorn Archimedes computer. Researcher Quentin Stafford-Fraser wrote the client software, dubbed XCoffee and employing the X Window System protocol, while his colleague Paul Jardetzky wrote the server program. [3]
In 1993, web browsers gained the ability to display images, [4] and it soon became clear that this would be an easier way to make the picture available to users. The camera was connected to the Internet and the live picture became available via HTTP in November of the same year, by computer scientists Daniel Gordon and Martyn Johnson. It therefore became visible worldwide and grew into a popular landmark of the early web.
Following the laboratory's move to its current premises, the camera was eventually switched off, at 09:54 UTC on 22 August 2001. Coverage of the shutdown included front-page mentions in The Times and The Washington Post , as well as articles in The Guardian and Wired . [5]
The last of the four or five coffee machines seen online, a Krups, was auctioned on eBay for £ 3,350 to the German news website Der Spiegel . The pot was later refurbished pro bono by Krups employees, and was switched on again in the magazine's editorial office. [6] Since the summer of 2016, the coffee maker is on permanent loan to the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum in Paderborn. [7]
Spoofs of the Trojan Room coffee machine ranged from the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol, a 1998 April Fools' Day specification for a communication protocol, to the 2002 video game Hitman 2: Silent Assassin , in which the player can destroy a "coffee camera" in a kitchen as a distraction. The coffee pot was also mentioned in the BBC Radio 4 drama The Archers on 24 February 2005. [6]
In the first episode of the fourth season of Halt and Catch Fire , the coffee pot is shown to depict the first webcam showing up on the emerging World Wide Web.
Spyware is any software with malicious behavior that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user by violating their privacy, endangering their device's security, or other means. This behavior may be present in malware and in legitimate software. Websites may engage in spyware behaviors like web tracking. Hardware devices may also be affected.
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James Quentin Stafford-Fraser is a computer scientist and entrepreneur based in Cambridge, England. He was one of the team that created the first webcam, the Trojan room coffee pot. Quentin pointed a camera at the coffee pot and wrote the XCoffee client program which allowed the image of the pot to be displayed on a workstation screen. When web browsers gained the ability to display images, the system was modified to make the coffee pot images available over HTTP and thus became the first webcam.
The Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP) is a facetious communication protocol for controlling, monitoring, and diagnosing coffee pots. It is specified in RFC 2324, published on 1 April 1998 as an April Fools' Day RFC, as part of an April Fools prank. An extension, HTCPCP-TEA, was published as RFC 7168 on 1 April 2014 to support brewing teas, also as an April Fools' Day RFC in error 418.
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Peter Robinson is Professor Emeritus of Computer Technology at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory in England, where he works in the Rainbow Group on computer graphics and interaction. He is also a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College and lives in Cambridge.
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Jennifer Kaye Ringley is an Internet personality and former lifecaster. She is widely regarded as the first camgirl. She is known for creating the popular website JenniCam. Previously, live webcams transmitted static shots from cameras aimed through windows or at coffee pots. Ringley's innovation was simply to allow others to view her daily activities. She was the first web-based "lifecaster". She retired from lifecasting at the end of 2003.
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