CERN: The world’s first website went online 20 years ago today

CERN website dispayed in Line Mode Browser
CERN website dispayed in Line Mode Browser

On this day 20 years ago the world’s first website went live. The website, created by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, was a basic text page with hyperlinks and went live on August 6, 1991.

The website was hosted on Berners-Lees‘ NeXT computer, the first web server ever, which had a note taped to the front that said: „This machine is a server. DO NOT POWER DOWN“.

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NeXT computer used as first World Wide Web server
NeXT computer used as first World Wide Web server

Today this computer is displayed in the CERN Computer Center, which is just located next to my office.

[Update 30 Apr 2013]: CERN is bringing the very first website back to life at its original URL. If you’d like to see it, point your browser to: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html