Tim Berners-Lee. Confirming The Exact Location Where the Web Was Invented
I wrote to Tim Berners-Lee after exploring CERN last week, looking for the location where the web was invented, his replies regarding the exact locations are below. [ I've put up photos of the excursion as an Oobject list, here ]
There is a plaque in a corridor in building 2, but no specific offices are indicated and there is some ambiguity as to what happened where, in building 31. Thomas Madsen-Mygdal has a gallery showing locations in building 31 and 513, but there are very few places on the web documenting these places. I took photos of the plaque, such as the one here, with Creative Commons licenses, so that they could be used elsewhere.
The reason I’m interested in this is that recognizing the exact places involved in the birth of the web is a celebration of knowledge itself rather than belief, opinion or allegiance, both politically and spiritually neutral and something that everyone can potentially enjoy and feel a part of.
Secondly, many places of lesser importance are very carefully preserved. The place where the web was invented is arguably the most important place in 2 millennia of Swiss history and of global historical importance.
Lastly, this kind of information is perhaps overlooked as being so obvious as to be common knowledge, exactly the sort of thing that sometimes gets forgotten. I’m not suggesting that the locations have indeed been overlooked, but they are not preserved or all indicated and the people I spoke to didn’t know the full details. So just in case…
DG: Where were you (at CERN and which building/rooms or home) when you thought of or were writing the original proposal for the web in 1989?
TBL: I wrote the proposal, and developed the code in Building 31.
I was on the second (in the European sense) floor, if you come out of the elevator (a very slow freight elevator at the time anyway) and turn immediately right you would then walk into one of the two offices I inhabited. The two offices (which of course may have been rearranged since then) were different sizes: the one to the left (a gentle R turn out of the elevator) benefited from extra length as it was by neither staircase nor elevator.
The one to the right (or a sharp R turn out of the elevator) was shorter and the one I started in. I shared it for a long time with Claude Bizeau.
I think I wrote the memo there.
When I actually started work coding up the WWW code in September 1990, I moved into the larger office. That is where I had the NeXT machine, as I remember it.
The second floor had pale grey linoleum, the first floor, where Peggie Rimmer had her office, had red lino; the third floor had pale yellow lino. The ground floor had I think green lino. Also on the second floor was the Documentation et Données, later Computing and Networking, HQ with David Williams at one point heading it up.
DG: For the development of the web, can you remember which offices were used in building 31 or off the corridor shown in building 2 in the attached image?
TBL: Building 2 I never had an office in. Robert Caulliau did, and various students, including Henrik Frysyk Nielsen and Hakon Lie, and Ari Luotonen, worked there.
DG: Was some of it inspired at home and was that here: Rue de la Mairie, Cessy (France)?
TBL: My house was [exact address removed since people live there] Rue de la Mairie, but I rented it out for some time around 1990 and actually lived in Les Champs Blancs, Chavannes de Bois [Switzerland]. But then we moved back to Cessy for a year before leaving.
[Update: I went back and took some pictures (Creative Commons license so you can use them) of the room where TBL created the original proposal for the Web. And have some exciting news to share about it soon!]
[door to the room where the web was invented]
[The Polish coder who currently occupies the room didn't know its significance. He was very happy to find out.]
[Ben Segal who helped setup the original web server in the room where the web was invented]
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July 8th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
[...] Confirming The Exact Location Where the Web Was Invented — davidgalbraith.org Nick Bilton says: A Web guru goes in search of the location where the Web was started and finds it. [...]
July 8th, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Just for reference, there are not 2 millenia of Swiss history. It’s in the 700-750 range, I think.
July 8th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
[...] Tim Berners-Lee. Confirming The Exact Location Where the Web Was Invented… David writes - I wrote to Tim Berners-Lee after exploring CERN last week, looking for the location where the web was invented, his replies regarding the exact locations are below. [ I've put up photos of the excursion as an Oobject list, here ] [...]
July 8th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
[...] Tim Berners-Lee. Confirming The Exact Location Where the Web Was Invented… David writes - I wrote to Tim Berners-Lee after exploring CERN last week, looking for the location where the web was invented, his replies regarding the exact locations are below. [ I've put up photos of the excursion as an Oobject list, here ] [...]
July 8th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Aaah the true Tech head’s pilgrimage to ‘Mecha’ - the place the Web was Invented. Nice to see it’s remained ‘understated’ through all those years, lol
July 8th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Oliver, don’t spout BS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusta_Raurica to name but one.
July 8th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
@Oliver. Good point.
July 8th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
[...] David for doing the legwork. Share and [...]
July 8th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
“The oldest pair of ice skates known date back to about 3000 BC found at the bottom of a lake in Switzerland.” So Swiss history goes back at least 5000 years. Cool article.
July 8th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
[...] technology since the printing press. David Galbraith tracked down the birthplace of the web and confirmed the location with Tim Berners-Lee. It happened at CERN, by the way. This kind of information is perhaps overlooked as being so [...]
July 8th, 2010 at 10:37 pm
That hallway has all the charm of the steerage on a tramp steamer. We’ve come to an age when history is made in tin corridors—though Dickson’s room at Menlo Park was rather dreary (or is now). I suppose Gutenberg’s workshop would’ve been filthy and smelt of metals and sulphur …
July 9th, 2010 at 2:29 am
Well, I’m sure the cybercriminals will want to celebrate this place almost as much as tennis fans will want to celebrate Roger Federer’s birthplace or theologians will want to celebrate Calvin, archaeologists La Tene, historians the origin of the Hapsburgs, politicians Lenin’s exile, scientists Einstein’s time at ETH, gadget freaks the invention of the Swiss Army Knife and horologists the cuckoo clock — but for the rest of us isn’t this merely a confirmation of all our prejudices about nerds?
July 9th, 2010 at 2:43 am
@Ian. But surely that isn’t comparing like with like? All web fans aren’t ‘cybercriminals’ any more than all tennis fans are tennis criminals. The nice thing about the web is that unlike Calvin, the Hapsburgs or Lenin, this is about knowledge rather than politics or religion, like the architecture of a great library rather than a palace or cathedral.
July 9th, 2010 at 2:48 am
@F.Lagnab “That hallway has all the charm of the steerage on a tramp steamer.” Yes it does, what a great description. But it’s a strange place, austere and barrack-like, somewhere between Los Alamos, Bletchley Park and MIT, but its strangeness makes it feel special.
The danger is that the rather pedestrian architecture means that it may not be preserved. That would be a great shame.
July 9th, 2010 at 3:05 am
Konrad,
As you will find from Wikipedia, the Federal Charter of 1291 agreed between the rural communes of Uri, Schwyz, and Nidwalden is considered the confederacy’s founding document, even though similar alliances are likely to have existed decades earlier.
So the Swiss nation only began to form a little over 700 years ago, meaning Oliver’s correction is indeed valid.
July 9th, 2010 at 4:34 am
Please, do not ignore the key phrase, “That is where I had the NeXT machine, as I remember it.” There were few folks with a NeXT computer in 1990 (or ever), though our math department had 5 or 6 then.
The operating system, NeXTStep 1.1 at that time, had an email system that sent text and pictures and sound, when all other email then was line by line with “pine”. When I first saw the internet in use in 1994, it strongly reminded me of NeXT mail, which created a new paradigm in itself. The leap from NeXT mail to an open format (HTML) was huge, but not nearly as wide a gulf as from standard line-edited unix email back then, or whatever basic Microsoft product there was in 1990. Plus, every NeXT computer came with built in ethernet, which was unheard of at that time. So, the foundations for this transformative creation event were also laid out in some obscure offices in Palo Alto as well.
And from NeXTStep, we got OpenStep, then we got Mac OS X 10.0 and that is where we are now.
Just a bit of kvitching.
July 9th, 2010 at 5:00 am
@Steve. The NeXT machine that Berners-Lee used is a popular public exhibit at CERN, I’ve seen it in the Data Center entrance and the Microcosm exhibition. Someone said there were 2 NeXT machines, but the sticker on the front, saying to leave it on, looked the same when I saw it in both places, so perhaps they have just moved it around.
Luckily they have been careful with the first server, but it would be good to put it in its original room which is not yet public.
July 9th, 2010 at 7:21 am
[...] Galbraith / David Galbraith’s Blog:Tim Berners-Lee. Confirming Tһе Exact Location Wһеrе tһе We… — I wrote tο Tim Berners-Lee аftеr exploring CERN last week, [...]
July 9th, 2010 at 7:29 am
And it was there on this exact machine
http://www.la-grange.net/2003/02/06-next-Tim-Berners-Lee the machine is now still with Tim.
July 9th, 2010 at 7:33 am
@Steve - most UNIX workstations, from Sun, HP, etc. would have had built-in Ethernet at the time, too.
July 9th, 2010 at 8:26 am
[...] Galbraith / David Galbraith’s Blog:Tim Berners-Lee. Confirming Tһе Exact Location Wһеrе tһе We… — I wrote tο Tim Berners-Lee аftеr exploring CERN last week, [...]
July 9th, 2010 at 10:03 am
@Steve -
I think you meant “Just a bit of kvelling” (KVELL: To beam with pride and pleasure),
not “kvitching” (sic) (KVETCH: To annoy or to be an annoying person, to complain.)
You have every right to kvell!
- for many reasons.
Thanks
July 9th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
[...] wide web. Note the series of tubes on the ceiling. Those played a critical role, I understand. [davidgalbraith] More » Tim Berners-Lee - History - People - CERN - World Wide Web [...]
July 9th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
[...] More information here: davidgalbraith.org [...]
July 9th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
[...] Typ namens David Galbraith hat im CERN nach dem Geburtsort des Webs gesucht und ihn gefunden (zumindest fast). Ein [...]
July 9th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
[...] wide web. Note the series of tubes on the ceiling. Those played a critical role, I understand. [davidgalbraith] [...]
July 9th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
[...] El lugar exacto donde nació la web [EN] davidgalbraith.org/uncategorized/the-exact-location-where-th… por Tanatos hace 2 segundos [...]
July 9th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
[...] wide web. Note the series of tubes on the ceiling. Those played a critical role, I understand. [davidgalbraith] Tagged:cerninternetonlinetim [...]
July 9th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
[...] wide web. Note the series of tubes on the ceiling. Those played a critical role, I understand. [davidgalbraith] [...]
July 9th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
[...] by a person, and in a place. With that thought in mind, Web entrepreneur and Yelp co-founder David Galbraith decided to find out, once and for all, where and by whom the Internet was brought to life. Over the course of an [...]
July 9th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
[...] Entre eso y que la WWW fue fruto de un proceso creativo y de desarrollo dilatado en el tiempo, se optó por colocar la placa en medio de ese pasillo, un lugar de paso y aproximado a uno de los laboratorios donde se estuvo trabajando. Resulta cuanto menos curioso comprobar como algo hoy esencial para gran parte de la población mundial en cuanto a trabajo y ocio y que tiene una historia tan corta casi no podemos determinar el lugar exacto en que surgió. ─Antonio Rentero [David Galbraith] [...]
July 9th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
[...] Shared David Galbraith’s Blog » Blog Archive » Tim Berners-Lee. Confirming The Exact Location Where the…. [...]
July 10th, 2010 at 1:57 am
[...] » noticia original [...]
July 10th, 2010 at 10:26 am
@Allen -
It would be kvelling were it that Steve. We can’t assume that it is.
- Eugene.
July 12th, 2010 at 4:44 am
[...] David Galbright je napisao interesantan članak o tome gde je nastao World Wide Web. I wrote to Tim Berners-Lee after exploring CERN last week, looking for the location where the web was invented, his replies regarding the exact locations are below. [ I've put up photos of the excursion as an Oobject list, here ] [...]
July 13th, 2010 at 11:25 am
[...] via David Galbraith’s Blog » Blog Archive » Tim Berners-Lee. Confirming The Exact Location Where the…. [...]
July 23rd, 2010 at 8:18 pm
Wrong continent. Where was Vint Cerf?
July 25th, 2010 at 9:53 am
Jack, Aren’t we being rather rather xenophobic? Vint Cerf did fantastic work & could well be considered as the father of the Internet, without which there could, of course, be no Web. TBL, with some help from CERN colleagues, put together the package of http, along with the first web server and browser which together earn him the kudos as the Inventor of the Web.
For more, see http://info.cern.ch and
http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/History.html
August 3rd, 2010 at 12:55 pm
@jack, the Web is not the Internet. Vint Cerf was involved in the development of the Internet not the Web.
October 6th, 2010 at 9:28 am
Thanks Ben. I love this - if you have any more detail, no matter how obscure, feel free to add it. With the invention of the web there is a chance to document its minutiae since its importance has become obvious so quickly after its invention.
I’ve been lobbying CERN with a proposal to preserve these rooms.
Interestingly, because the border is invisible within the CERN campus, where the proposal was written is actually a fairly big deal, since the commemorative plaque is in Switzerland but B31 is a few feet into France. Perhaps the ambiguity as to what country it was invented in is fitting for a communications medium that transcends geography.
October 13th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
[...] architect David Galbraith wrote to Berners-Lee, looking for the exact location where the Web was invented. “The reason [...]
January 31st, 2011 at 8:59 am
David I found this information fascinating due to knowledge, time and effort this man gave to make the internet possible for us today. I feel he may have been a bit vague on the exact place that it all took place however, maybe that is because times and places have changed. What I did notice is that he noted many people as he wrote to you, I am curious if any of them would have any further information or more detailed information on this subject.
Thanks for such great work!
October 8th, 2011 at 10:54 pm
[...] Web 2.0: Tim Berners-Lee Linked Data talk at Gov 2.0 ExpoWho Invented the World Wide WebDavid Galbraith’s Blog if (top != self) top.location.href = self.location.href if (top.location!= self.location) { [...]
November 21st, 2011 at 10:21 am
The room number is 31-2012.
This isn’t some Mayan apocalypse in joke is it?
December 9th, 2011 at 8:52 am
[...] and the first web server, but the offices are still there. Exact locations are a bit hazy, but TBL recounted the web’s origin story to David Galbraith a few years ago. Let your sleuthing begin [...]
December 9th, 2011 at 9:36 am
[...] and the first web server, but the offices are still there. Exact locations are a bit hazy, but TBL recounted the web’s origin story to David Galbraith a few years ago. Let your sleuthing begin [...]
December 9th, 2011 at 9:55 am
[...] and the first web server, but the offices are still there. Exact locations are a bit hazy, but TBL recounted the web’s origin story to David Galbraith a few years ago. Let your sleuthing begin [...]
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