Line Mode Browser

The Line Mode Browser is a minimalist web browser, which is operated through a command line. He was the first web browser, which stood for all major operating systems are available and thus the World Wide Web made ​​generally available. It is being developed by the W3C (originally from CERN ).

Operation

To maximize on any computer and operating system - even on simple terminals - to work, the user interface is kept very simple: You can enter commands on a command line and settle this with the enter key. Thereupon, the requested web page line by line - like a teletype - written on the screen ( hence the name " Line Mode Browser" ). You can not use the arrow keys in the displayed web page to scroll up or down as in about a year later published Lynx - the cursor remains in the command line, as in a Unix shell. Instead, pressing the Enter key is (ie with an "empty command" ) to scroll one screen down and "up" back up.

The links are numbered and displayed the numbers in square brackets after the link. A link can be invoked by typing its number. Go to previous page you can use the command " back", new pages are "http:// ... go" called with ( it is sufficient to type the first letters printed in bold ).

The presentation of Web pages is limited to the original version of HTML: It is used only plain text, ie Bold and italic print or different font sizes are not possible. Instead, for example, Headings written in capital letters, centered by the added space and set off by blank lines from text.

History

Even in Tim Berners- Lee's first proposal dated March 1989 from the subsequently the World Wide Web project at CERN in Geneva ( Switzerland), we find the requirement that Web documents independently of the computer and operating system for each shall be legible. " Universal readership " (English: embracing readership ) was retained and later as a fundamental concept. The first web browser, had begun its development Tim Berners -Lee in October 1990, but only ran on NeXT computers. To remedy this deficiency, (then an intern at CERN ) was commissioned in November 1990 Nicola Pellow to develop the line mode browser.

Christmas 1990, both browsers ready for presentation. In August 1991, Berners -Lee made ​​the project and the Line Mode Browser in the newsgroup alt.hypertext known. In October 1991, an installation of the Line Mode Browser was started as an anonymous telnet service, which could now be accessed with any standard Telnet -enabled computer or terminal on the WWW without having even installed a browser. In January 1992, the first stable version 1.1 of the Line Mode Browser was released for download after it had been done before ( in the package with the first Web server and a library ) of the high energy physics community accessible.

The now widespread availability of the World Wide Web helped the project to the wider interest within the CERN and other laboratories such as DESY.

After the establishment of the World Wide Web Consortium in 1994, the further development of the Line Mode Browser was taken over by this. Today, he plays as a browser no longer matters after Lynx has been selected as preferred text-only browser. As an example application, but it is maintained in the Library Libwww on.