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Mosaic, the First HTML Browser That Could Display Images Alongside Text, Turns 25 (wired.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the happy-birthday dept.

NCSA Mosaic 1.0, the first web browser to achieve popularity among the general public, was released on April 22, 1993. It was developed by a team of students at the University of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and had the ability to display text and images inline, meaning you could put pictures and text on the same page together, in the same window. Wired reports: It was a radical step forward for the web, which was at that point, a rather dull experience. It took the boring "document" layout of your standard web page and transformed it into something much more visually exciting, like a magazine. And, wow, it was easy. If you wanted to go somewhere, you just clicked. Links were blue and underlined, easy to pick out. You could follow your own virtual trail of breadcrumbs backwards by clicking the big button up there in the corner. At the time of its release, NCSA Mosaic was free software, but it was available only on Unix. That made it common at universities and institutions, but not on Windows desktops in people's homes.

The NCSA team put out Windows and Mac versions in late 1993. They were also released under a noncommercial software license, meaning people at home could download it for free. The installer was very simple, making it easy for just about anyone to get up and running on the web. It was then that the excitement really began to spread. Mosaic made the web come to life with color and images, something that, for many people, finally provided the online experience they were missing. It made the web a pleasure to use.

13 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. First HTML Browser That Could Display Images? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2, Informative

    You mean something like WorldWideWeb

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
    1. Re:First HTML Browser That Could Display Images? by goose-incarnated · · Score: 2

      You mean something like WorldWideWeb

      As evil atheist pointed out, you missed a bit while reading the article. Anyway, that desktop is very very similar to what my own desktop currently looks like (I run WindowMaker).

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    2. Re:First HTML Browser That Could Display Images? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      WorldWideWeb could display images alongside text eventually. It's not entirely clear when it gained the functionality. (By the way, the fact that it had to wait for NEXTStep to support it is a clear indication of how backwards even NEXTStep was compared to Smalltalk where implementing such a feature was much easier.)

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  2. Feeling old... by Eaglehawk · · Score: 5, Funny

    Never has a Slashdot article title made me feel so old...

    1. Re:Feeling old... by maestroX · · Score: 2

      Never has a Slashdot article title made me feel so old...

      You're alright as long as you don't mention Gopher.

  3. Rule 34 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Mosaic made the web come to life with color and images, something that, for many people, finally provided the online experience they were missing."

    P0rn.

    "It made the web a pleasure to use."

    I'm sure it did!

  4. Re:Wow, images!!! by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Text isn't boring.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  5. Dang I'm old by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 2

    Used it ...

    And I remember that fancy new IBM WebExplorer ... on OS/2

    1. Re:Dang I'm old by CaseyB · · Score: 2

      OS/2 2.0 was the shit. I used to have my phone number in my usenet signature, and once got a call from John Soyring, the guy in charge of the OS/2 program, to thank me after I posted a glowing review of it.

  6. And it's all downhill since then by TeknoHog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The early Internet (and BBSes etc.) was nice because it were faceless, and you would be judged by you merits rather than mugshots. Fast forward quarter a century, and it's all about posting polished images of your luxurious lifestyle.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  7. Marc Andreessen by tomhath · · Score: 4, Informative

    Shortly after Mosaic was released, Andreessen made a copy of the source code, moved to San Francisco and repackaged it as Netscape Navigator. That was one of the most profitable copies of code anyone ever made.

  8. Will never displace Gopher! by Minupla · · Score: 2

    Proving you should NEVER trust me to make tech predictions, upon seeing Mosaic, I will forever be remembered as saying "Who'd ever use that, Gopher is WAY more efficient"

    Oops.

    Min

    --
    On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
  9. Wow... by beheaderaswp · · Score: 2

    What a weird feeling.

    To think I went through Archie, Veronica, Gopher... even before PPP through SLIP. The days of completely open mail relays, anonymous FTP, and all the UNIX. That's all there was really... it was a big blank chalkboard. Techies were racing to write on it.

    Yea it makes me feel old. But I'm glad I got to see it.

    --
    Another consultant who stuck it out.

    "We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."