Slashdot Mirror
The Finns Who Invented the Graphical Browser
waderoush writes "If you thought Mosaic was the first graphical Web browser, think again. In their first major interview, three of the four Finnish software engineers behind Erwise — a point-and-click graphical Web browser for the X Window system — describe the creation of their program in 1991-1992, a full year before Marc Andreessen's Mosaic (which, of course, evolved into Netscape). Kim Nyberg, Kari Sydänmaanlakka, and Teemu Rantanen, with their fellow Helsinki University of Technology student Kati Borgers (nee Suominen), gave Erwise features such as text searching and the ability to load multiple Web pages that wouldn't be seen in other browsers until much later. The three engineers, who today work for the architectural software firm Tekla, say they never commercialized the project because there was no financing — Finland was in a deep recession at the time and lacked a strong venture capital or angel investing market. Otherwise, the Web revolution might have begun a year earlier."
The first web browser of all was WorldWideWeb.app, and it was a NeXTSTEP program. It was graphical from the beginning.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
(citation needed)
Sent from your iPad.
If you thought Erwise was the first graphical Web browser, think again.
Why not just say Hypercard was the first graphical browser?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Explains why the guys didn't start any lawsuits yet.
?täsoopiyauo tsauyriifäää
I'm sorry, this is a story about Finns. Corrected that for you.
Common... a graphical "gopher" was just a natural step. Hardly news worthy.
Since HTTP was thought up at CERN, did they not have a browser? Or was it just text based?
Think Deeply.
Eric Bina wrote just as much code as Andressen. And Andressen later had help from several other UI students.
Also, nobody thinks Mosaic was the first. If anything, the card these Finns trump is Tim Bruce, who wrote Cello.
This is worse than Bill Gates inventing the personal computer, when all he did was steal CP/M. Let's do a little better at getting history correct.
Despite the company and browser not existing at the time, I can confidently say that Opera had all these features before Erwise. There will be naysayers, of course.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
Wow and we all though it was Mosaic!
To tell you the truth, I had never heard of Erwise until today. A have a few questions about Erwise:
- Did it support graphics other that XBM?
- Did it render HTML, or some other markup language?
I did some consulting for a company called HyperMedia Corporation in 1991-92. As part of that work, I watched closely the development of HTML, NCSA Mosaic, and the lot. HMC's markup language was proprietary and binary. The first thing that struck me about HTML was the ease of editing--you didn't need a dedicated editor. Then, I remember seeing early builds of NCSA's browser (to become Mosaic) when they first added, IIRC, gif support. I remember being absolutely floored with the ability to create attractive content in only a few minutes. My first thought after seeing it was, "I need to find a new job!" Sure enough, within a few months HMC was out of business.
The end result is that there were many factors that led to the success of NCSA Mosaic and Netscape. First, Mosaic ran on platforms other than the X Window System, so it was more accessible. Second, it was among the first to support usable graphics (i.e. not XBM), at least on an accessible platform (Emacs' browser & WorldWideWeb.app had early image support, too, but both were on platforms that had very narrow distribution possibilities). Third, it used standard HTML.
Erwise might have had all of these, with the one caveat that it supported only Unix/X Window System. Hard to say from this article. However, I think it's a little simplistic to say that funding was the only thing holding these guys back from Netscape-like success.
--Be human.
I'm pretty sure NCSA's Mosaic "evolved" into "Internet Explorer". Netscape's rendering engine was developed separately, wasn't it?
Harumph!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)
8-)
Who are they suing?
WorldWideWeb 1.0 had a windowed, point-and-click UI, so it would be "graphical" compared to, say, Lynx.
The real title of "first graphical browser" goes to whichever application first displayed inline graphics on a page. I'm not sure exactly which one this was...NCSA Mosaic often gets credit for this, but the feature was also added to later versions of ViolaWWW and WorldWideWeb.
Inline graphics were a major factor in the success of the Web over existing internet hypertext systems like Gopher.
Does anyone else remember Roboterm? It was a graphical BBS terminal client (which would show downloaded graphics when talking to a roboterm board). Neat but proprietary:
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
What bugs me to some extent on this note, even though you were modded down (Which a good 50% of the time here is a pack of pricks just causing trouble)?
Is that folks from other nations may "hate on us", but, they fail to realize something: THIS NATION IS COMPOSED OF THEIR NATIONALS WHO MIGRATED HERE, thus, i.e.? We ARE they also.
Now - I can understand disliking the U.S.A. in some of its governmental policies (especially the BUSH administration, thank God they are gone now), but, not its people as a whole.
I've been called all kinds of racial slurs in my time, because of my bloodline, & realize it's crap: There are GOOD people of all types, and BAD people of all types, & good & bad? Just points of view.
APK
No the problem is that there is a difference between a problem-solver and a visionary.
A problem-solver comes up with a solution to a specific problem. The genesis of Cello, for example, was one guy saying to himself "I need a windows-based program that can access legal sites in html" and then solving the problem.
But it takes a visionary to realize when a solution has a much great potential. It was Marc Andreessen (and guys like him) who came along and said "You know, a Windows based browser could have a general appeal beyond just some specialized applications. We could actually sell this thing and start a revolution."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Thank you for saying that. The Slashdot story is misleading, as often happens. The story says "... a full year before Marc Andreessen's Mosaic...". But there were huge discussions of Hypertext long before that. It was clear that Hypertext would be implemented anywhere it could be used. What those who wrote the first internet browsers did was implement an old idea for the internet.
Flashterm makes me laugh.
n/t
A problem-solver comes up with a solution to a specific problem. The genesis of Cello, for example, was one guy saying to himself "I need a windows-based program that can access legal sites in html" and then solving the problem.
Which is not to say Tom Bruce, author of Cello, wasn't ALSO a visionary; the Legal Information Institute he founded in the early days of the web (thus creating the need for his web browser for lawyers' Win3.1 PCs in the first place) is perhaps the foremost reference site on the Constitution of the United States and related issues, and it didn't come to be that way by chance.
Andreesen's vision happened to involve making a pile of money; Bruce's did not.
It's rare, but exists. My theory is that 99% of people in most groups are nice, but the 1% give that group a bad reputation. Rather than paint a whole group with a reputation, I've just decide that 1% of people are jerks no matter where you go.
In a decade of traveling internationally, the only 2 examples of hated towards Americans I can recall:
1) Nearly got my ass kicked by some old drunk guy for saying hi to a girl in a pub in Sydney (not hitting on her, saying hi). From his foul mouthed commentary, he didn't seem to like Americans and decided it was time to take one out. Eventually he chilled out and everyone else in Australia I ever met was cool.
2) Despite smooth flying, the pilot never turned of the seatbelt sign on a flight from Paris to Atlanta on Air France. After being stuck in our seats for almost 4 hours, the girl next to me was having some serious bladder issues. In serious pain and begging the flight attendant to let her go to the bathroom. After listening to a short commentary from the attendant on how despicable Americans are, he finally let her go.
So my 1% is rounded up.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
The venerable Unix info files and even man pages also do the same thing. Web browsers was a logical improvement of existing ideas. It was not evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
They didn't get credit because they never Finnished it.
-1 Slur
Table-ized A.I.
How dare you, saying NI to an old woman?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I was in Russia recently, and while the vast majority of Russians were extremely nice to me, some random guy on the subway cussed me the fuck out.
I was just standing there minding my own business and idly chatting with a coworker when this guy just starts laying into me. I don't speak Russian so I have no idea what he was actually saying, but it's not hard to tell when somebody is saying something extremely unpleasant to you even if you don't speak the language. Plus there were liberal sprinklings of "Americano" and mock spitting. I was half expecting him to throw a punch.
So yes, most people most places are pretty nice, but I've run into more than one asshole who hates me for no other reason than my nationality.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
And the thing is, Andreesen's vision wasn't particularly novel or innovative; everything he thought up was already out there, read the other posts in this thread. The world without him would be almost exactly the same; Andreesen might as well not have existed at all. The only difference between him and your next door neighbour is that he took something and had good enough PR to tie his nametag to it. And his case isn't unique. The more I learn from history the more I see that most of the names you come by belong to persons who played a part, often forced by the circumstances, that might as well have been played by someone else. It smacks of hero worship and I don't care much for it.
Can any of this prior art be used to tear apart the existing thousands of software copyrights that have been issued to MS, Sun, IBM, ...? It may not have been commercialized or even copyrighted but if it existed before the Copyright trolls got to it then maybe some of this mess can be undone.
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is facing a great battle." - Philo of Alexandria -
Or if they tried to profit off it, might have never happened at all.
The openness of the early days is why we have it today.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The vision to become the dominant OS maker many years earlier, of course.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Oh, but not anymore/there were often differences between the population that stayed and the one that emigrated (nevermind an argument "the mix is more than sum of its parts", it's hard to quantify it in any way...).
Actually, often those very differences were the reason for migration.
Which in some cases ended up quite good for the US, for example immigration of people that on one hand were excluded from success (because in the past more than now success didn't depend on you, much more on the social role in which you were placed), which didn't neccesarilly change after migrating...but on the other they were quite motivated/etc. (even now changing continents is quite a big deal...). Heck, one of the reasons Poland is now so messed up is that intellectuals who weren't forcibly moved to Syberia in XIX/beginning of XX century or simply later killed by Soviets & Nazis...emigrated, also to US.
Though...there's still some fallout you have from those differences/reasons for migration...most notably, I think, because large part of it was religiously motivated. Now, granted, in many cases we would brand those who emmigrated as closer to us on moral/etc. terms, but the truth is...basically EVERY religious group from back then could be described today as religious nutjobs. For some reason (easier isolation of such groups from external influence?) "nutjob" views largery survived in the US, while Europe, thankfully, menaged to get rid of them, largery... (though not completely; using previous example - they're still, unfortunatelly, prevailing in Poland; but it's worth to note that they're much less extreme and out of touch with reality than those among immigrant Poles in US - when interacting with them, I have the impression I'm talking to my grandparents, in regards to moral views/politics/etc.)
One that hath name thou can not otter
I created one back in May of 1967. I used Crayola Crayons (tm) and several sheets of paper. My mom published them up on the fridge.
The moment they started working on it they were Finnish...ed.
I'll be here all week.
paintball
It's not really about individuals.
It's more what people think about your country as a whole in comparison to what they were thinking 10 of 15 years ago - back then you were the model everybody loved and aspired to, with a lot of power throughout the world but putting that power in a good use.
Now, often, you're just an overwight bully.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Russia is a special case though...not only they never forgot their aspirations for beeing the most powerfull superpower, don't forget that even for a second.
But also...it was largery you, Americans, who beat them at that aspiration. Not only that, you also caused a major setback. And that's just on a "national pride" level...also don't forget for a second that many Russians think they were better of during USSR era (and in many cases that's quite correct, nevermind typical nostalgia for the times when one was young)
One that hath name thou can not otter
to be noted that the "true" history of graphical web browsers started (and will end) with IE...
"Internet Explorer: what page do you want to rape today?"
$god = null;
if($god) echo 'I believe!';
> Otherwise, the Web revolution might have begun a year earlier.
OMG! You mean I could have been using myspace a year earlier and I'd have twice as many friends by now?! We could have had lolcats twelve months earlier and my application in the lolcat programming language would already be finished?! It's like a year of my life has been stolen. Who do I sue?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Based on NCSA Mosaic. NCSA Mosaic(TM); was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Distributed under a licensing agreement with Spyglass, Inc. Contains security software licensed from RSA Data Security Inc. Portions of this software are based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group. Multimedia software components, including Indeo(R); video, Indeo(R) audio, and Web Design Effects are provided by Intel Corp. Unix version contains software licensed from Mainsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1998-1999 Mainsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Mainsoft is a trademark of Mainsoft Corporation. Warning: This computer program is protected by copyright law and international treaties. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this program, or any portion of it, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties, and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law.
Seems Netscape is not the only one?
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
Being sad is no excuse for not taking over the world.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart
He also invented the mouse, the GUI, and ARPANET.
Finnish a human language? Next thing you'll be saying we're humans...
[OffTopic]
These words are different parts of speech, right?
"This is a graph (noun)."
"This is a graphic (adjective) representation"
i'm not sure graphical is a word at all. It doesn't parse to anything meaningful unless you go to graphically. "We are representing this information graphically (adverb, in a graphic way).
There's no such thing as a graphical, so there couldn't be a graphical designer. Why would it be a graphical interface, and not a graphic interface?
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
For the thousandth time, the idea that the U.S. was founded by a bunch of religious wackjobs looking to establish a "City on a Hill" is a myth. This was ONLY true of the New England colonies. The middle and southern colonies (you know, little settlements like Jamestown, New York, Philadelphia, etc.) were secular settlements populated by settlers interested in economic, not religious, opportunity. This makes the whole "and they've somehow survived to this day" argument even more laughable--because the former New England colonies are today some of the most secular and liberal areas of the country, whereas the former secular southern colonies have become some of the most religiously conservative (this has to do with historical movements like the Great Awakening, the north/south church schisms of the Civil War, and the Restorationist movement, etc. that took place LONG after the U.S. was founded).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I'm just glad no one has ever rickrolled me in real life either.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Roger, is that you?
You missed one important part of my post, when I said that back then practically EVERY social group would be described by us as religious wackjobs - so in the case of US that includes not only New England of the past, but also those "secular" settlements. They were secular only to the degree that was possible back then, in both Europe and US, but...from our point of view, still nutjobs.
And you can't really argue with me that this didn't survive in the US to a much greater degree then in general Europe - I feel the pain too, I see it every day, living in one of the few countries that, especially in this regard, don't fit into EU at all. Actually you even mention unfortunate events that allowed it to survive in the US (yeah, in different parts...so?), I might look into them out of curiosity when time allows.
One that hath name thou can not otter