Introducing: Web Development History
Netscape Navigator Introducing Web Development History, an online history of the internet for developers and the technically curious.
Read More Introducing: Web Development History Netscape Navigator 1996: Microsoft Activates the Internet With ActiveX & JScript
Post thumbnail In March 1996, at Microsoft’s annual Professional Developers Conference (PDC), Bill Gates announced a set of internet technologies called ActiveX. “Part of the unique thing that Microsoft is doing,” he said regarding Microsoft’s approach to the Internet, “[…] is a strong level of integration into Windows.” It was the moment Netscape, Sun Microsystems, and other web-focused companies had feared — Microsoft was embedding the Internet into its powerful Windows ecosystem.
Read More 1996: Microsoft Activates the Internet With ActiveX & JScript1969: Building the oN-Line System
Post thumbnail After the Mother Of All Demos in late 1968, solid progress was made in building out the oN-Line System (NLS) over 1969. In a 1970 “final report” by Engelbart and his staff at the Augmentation Research Center (ARC), the hardware and software of NLS developed over the past couple of years is outlined. The report states that “the configuration of the ARC computer facility has been relatively stable over the past two years,” but there “have been some peripheral additions, in particular the ARPA network interface and an external core system.”
Read More 1969: Building the oN-Line System1996: Netscape Lays the Groundwork For Web Applications
Post thumbnail Browser technology and JavaScript in the second half of 1996 expanded beyond the initial document-focused delivery of websites that we saw over 1994 and 1995. In 1996, we began to see web applications emerge.
Read More 1996: Netscape Lays the Groundwork For Web Applications1968: The Mother of All Demos
Post thumbnail It’s Monday the 9th of December, 1968, and Douglas Engelbart, a 43 year old Silicon Valley engineer, is about to give the biggest presentation of his career. He’s going to showcase the world’s first personal, networked, computer — as a live demo. It’s the computing equivalent of a high-wire trapeze act with no net.
Read More 1968: The Mother of All Demos1996: JavaScript Annoyances and Meeting The DOM
Post thumbnail For all of the technical wizardry in Netscape Navigator 2.0, when it was first released JavaScript was put to use in fairly trivial ways — scrolling text, silly animations, tricks with colors (fading, rainbow effects, and so on). Inventor Brendan Eich called these initial use cases “annoyances.” But there was also an underlying power, especially with the beginnings of the DOM.
Read More 1996: JavaScript Annoyances and Meeting The DOM1995: The Birth of JavaScript
Netscape 1995 JavaScript was invented in a two-week flurry in May 1995 by Brendan Eich, at the time a newly hired developer at browser company Netscape. The project was initiated by Netscape because of a desire to extend the early Web beyond the limits of HTML. In particular, Netscape wanted to add interactivity to websites. JavaScript ended up being the solution and this post explores how that came to be.
Read More 1995: The Birth of JavaScript