With today being the 30th birthday of the World Wide Web we thought it would be a bit of fun to take a step back in time and see what some current websites would have looked like all those years ago.
The only problem with doing this we found is that 30 years ago there weren’t any graphical browsers, so we’ve gone as close as we can by using Mosaic which is regarded as being one of the first graphical web browsers.
We had planned to show you what some of the most well known websites in the world (YouTube, Apple, Microsoft, BBC) looked like, but Mosaic doesn’t support HTTPS. So modern day website security is being a little too much for the older browser.
As you will see from our screen captures the pages are pretty broken, this hi-lights that current web pages are ever so dependant on javascript and CSS for making our sites look visually appealing and for running fundamental actions such as contact forms.
Click the links below the image to see how the site looks today.
graphitas.co.uk
google.co.uk
4chan.org
sunsite.ubc.ca
ox.ac.uk
nationalrail.co.uk
three.co.uk
ncsa.illinois.edu
So, if you fancy stepping back in time yourself grab a copy of Mosaic from here.
Also to celebrate the web’s 30th birthday Sir Tim Berners-Lee (@timberners_lee) is calling on twitter users to build a timeline of the web’s milestone moments where you can take part by tweeting.
Go to https://webfoundation.org/2019/02/help-build-a-timeline-of-the-webs-history/ to see how you can help. #Web30 #ForTheWeb.
