
The first web site - sfrj
http://line-mode.cern.ch/www/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
======
Nition
Really cool.

You can also go to the page without the line mode browser emulation:
[http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html](http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html)

According to [http://line-mode.cern.ch](http://line-mode.cern.ch) that page
hasn't even been modified to work in a modern browser - it still displays
perfectly as-is!

~~~
peller
It still gets me the original tags/attributes were all uppercase. Personally,
I'm quite thankful that didn't stick.

~~~
prodigal_erik
It made sense coming from SGML where you're mostly reading and writing text
with an occasional bit of markup. Now it seems some people don't even know
that text can appear on a page without first being munged in using the DOM.

~~~
tannhaeuser
Allow me to plug my project here to resurrect SGML in all its glory.

Just two days ago, my paper for parsing HTML5.1 in its entirety using SGML [1]
has been accepted for the XML Prague conference, if anyone is interested.

[1]: [http://sgmljs.net/docs/html5.html](http://sgmljs.net/docs/html5.html)

------
analog31
A few summers ago, my family traveled to Switzerland, ostensibly for hiking,
but it was on the heels of the Higgs discovery, and we signed up for a tour at
CERN. Among the items in their museum is the computer that ran the first web
site. It was a NeXT cube, with a card taped to the side, humbly requesting
that it not be turned off.

I'm still amused by the thought of a time when the entire world-wide-web could
be brought down by accidentally turning off one computer!

~~~
kleptako
Are there two of them? I saw it at the Science Museum in London.

~~~
cronopios
There are two of them, but I think they are both at the CERN.

One is displayed to the public, and, IIRC, the other one is in a showcase at
the entrance of a lab.

~~~
mino
I also see it at the Science Museum London in this gallery:

[http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/plan_your_visit/...](http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/plan_your_visit/exhibitions/information_age)

Was it a loan then? It looked like part of the permanent collection.

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hughes
Seems almost completely illegible to me, is that an intended part of the
filter effect?

Edit: looks like chrome completely fails to display this font. Firefox handles
it well enough

Edit2: Funny quirk, the css rule

    
    
       * { display: inline }
    

actually renders the injected lastpass script at the bottom of the page!

~~~
paulddraper
Oh...that's what that is. I get some JS thrown in there too.

~~~
zapu
I have some as well, I wonder from which extension, probably Vimium ;)

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mgkimsal
i instinctively went to "ctrl-c" the site after typing in a couple numbers...

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ankka
Sadly many of the links are broken.

If I was part of a university IT team and our site was linked to from the
first webpage ever, I would at least make sure there was a redirect to a
working page.

~~~
bertil
Actually, that this could happen (and did routinely) was seen as resilience by
TimBL, a feature that allowed anyone to work on their own stuff without having
to ask for permission. Having software that could have imperfection was what
made the original idea revolutionary. The tone was more encyclopedic to
encourage researcher at the time to contribute and update their link when they
knew the target was changed, but they could very well not do that.

That first web page still exists because of the emotional value, but the pages
this was linking to (or pages those were linking to, etc.) lost their interest
at some point. That’s natural.

------
ewams
Maybe I am missing something, but how is this the first web site when it has
css and javascript, which were brought about in 94-95, when the page claims it
was published in 1992.

In clicking around, most of the page is the "original" but not sure about the
line mode part. Thoughts?

[http://first-website.web.cern.ch/blog](http://first-website.web.cern.ch/blog)

~~~
darkwinx
They try to give us not just the content, but also the look and feel of the
display at that time, I think. Therefore there are CSS and JavaScript.

------
killerbat00
ibiblio also hosts a site claiming to be the world's first[1]. Berners-Lee
used it as a demo at Hypertext '91\. [1]
[http://www.ibiblio.org/archive/2013/07/forbes-unc-and-the-
ol...](http://www.ibiblio.org/archive/2013/07/forbes-unc-and-the-oldest-web-
page-we-have-the-last-here/)

------
contingencies
This seems less like a website and more like a webbified gopher[0] protocol
client-server experience. View source red flashing light: no <CAPITALS-ONLY-
TAGS>. This is heavily massaged.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_\(protocol\))

~~~
AgentME
This page seems like a modern re-creation of what experiencing the original
page on the original software and machines was like. The plain original page
is at
[http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html](http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html).

------
thinkloop
Reproducing the animation effect and terminal functionality on a website today
wouldn't be that straight forward :-D

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tempodox
So the very first web site already adhered to that pernicious habit of not
dating online documents properly ;)

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uvince
Woah, this is a great deal snazzier than the first US WWW site.
[http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/firstpages.sht...](http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/firstpages.shtml)

------
webXL
LMB project: [https://github.com/cern-hackdays/lmb](https://github.com/cern-
hackdays/lmb)

Perhaps I'll submit a pull request to auto-focus the prompt!

------
afro88
For anyone getting a bunch minified js/css written out in line mode rather
than the actual first website: turn off your browser plugins/extensions :)

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GolDDranks
Doesn't seem to support Safari. The first web site ever surely didn't print
anything about "@-webkit-keyframes" on the screen!

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AndrewOMartin
I was initially surprised to see a bunch of LastPass Javascript at the top of
the page.

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yigitozkavci
Actual "css, fonts, js" folder structure. Long time no see

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vog
I would love to see that integrated into Archive.org!

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ravirajx7
On opening this thread in HN client "Materialistic" app. It crashes on its
own. Is it happening with any other hn clients too? What's the reason for it?

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aakarpost
We've come a long way!

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poseid
nice to see the concept of hypermedia so early in the text

~~~
NamTaf
I am just finishing _The Innovators_ by Walter Isaacson (the guy who also did
Jobs' biography) and it did a good job at tracing the threads of theoretical
information management systems through to their practical manifestation via
the invention of the web by Berners-Lee. It's a decent read and I'd recommend
it if you have an interest in the history of computing as a whole and how the
various ideas and concepts that came to shape how computers exist today were
first born then later realised.

------
dehef
The WWW has just f* up the humanity. Exiting from the WWII we had some hope in
the future. Everything is lost now.

