🌐 Ever wanted to browse the web like it’s 1989? Now you can.
In 2019, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web, a team at CERN rebuilt the original WorldWideWeb browser — written by Tim Berners-Lee on a NeXT machine — inside a modern browser.
What is WorldWideWeb?
In December 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created the first web browser at CERN. It was radically different from what we know today:
- No inline images
- Documents could be edited directly in the browser
- It had a double-click system to follow hyperlinks
- Typography came from the NeXT font system
What did they rebuild?
The team recreated in JavaScript the experience of using that original browser:
- NeXTStep window interface
- Original menus with “Document”, “Style”, “Navigate”
- Ability to open any current URL with the 1990 interface
- Original NeXT computer typography
Try the original browser: https://worldwideweb.cern.ch/browser
Type a URL, double-click on links, and browse today’s web as if it were 1990. 😄
💡 Explanation in a nutshell#
The World Wide Web was not invented by “the internet” — the internet already existed as infrastructure. It was Tim Berners-Lee who invented the hypertext document system (HTML + HTTP + URLs) that allowed universal information sharing. This CERN project lets you experience that first browser that changed the world.
More information at the link 👇
CERN 2019 WorldWideWeb Rebuild
2019 rebuilding of the original NeXT web browser
