The first version of the first web browser ever — Tim Berners-Lee’s WorldWideWeb — carried with it a date of 12/25/1990. That’s 20 years ago tomorrow.

Most people won’t notice this anniversary, however, because CERN decided to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the WWW last year. Why’d they do that? Well, 1989 is when Berners-Lee first conceived of the WWW and wrote about the idea in a document to his supervisor. 1990, however, is when the web actually went live. Happy 20th birthday, WWW!

I emailed Berners-Lee to ask him about the original release date of WorldWideWeb (a browser only available only for the NeXT platform, by the way), and he responded with the truth behind the Christmas release date:

I wrote the web browser between September and mid-November 1990. I had to stop work because (a) CERN was closed for the Christmas break (around the 13th maybe) and (b) a first child was due Dec 24. So though the software version was wrapped some time well before Christmas. I labeled it version 901225 to be a memorable version number!

So there you have it from the inventor of the Web himself.

In honor of this occasion, I put together a slideshow of “Web Browsers Through the Ages” for PC World. I hope you enjoy it.

I whipped up this Zelda-themed ornament a few days ago out of some leftover polymer clay I had lying around. I thought you might enjoy it.

Have you ever made video game or computer themed ornaments? If so, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

A few days ago, PCMag.com published a slideshow of vintage Christmas graphics files that I put together. Some of those images were stills from animated GIFs. Below, you’ll find the full animated GIF files featured in the article and a whole lot more. Merry Christmas!

Prepare to be besparkled.

[ Continue reading Animated Christmas GIFs of Yore » ]

I’ve been collecting vintage Christmas GIF files for a while now, and I finally decided to put some of the best ones from the 256-color PC era together in a slideshow. You can check it out over at PCmag.com.

Please disregard the “Christmas Card” stuff they inserted in the title and introduction — I’m not sure why they did that. The images have nothing to do with Christmas cards (those paper things you mail to people). I guess it’s hard to concisely describe to the general public what exactly these images are and why someone would want to look at them. Also, the captions are to the upper right of each image. Hope you enjoy it. Merry Christmas.

Update (12/21/2010): I just posted a bunch of animated Christmas GIFs, including those featured in this slideshow.

Who will win the battle of the Zappers?

Discussion Topic of the Week: Name any item you received as a present for Christmas in 1987. Don’t remember? Guess!

35 years ago this month, Steve Sasson and his crew at a Kodak laboratory in Rochester, NY tested the world’s first digital camera for the first time. The device only took 100×100 pixel photos, storing them on audio cassette tape.

Sounds like a good excuse to create a slideshow overview of digital camera history, doesn’t it? Mosey on over to PC World and check out what I put together — “35 Years of the Digital Camera.”

How your Apple II sees itself.
(click above to see full ad)

This early Apple II video digitizer (the DS-65 Digiselector) took a regular video input and…well, digitized it. The result was a 256×256 pixel greyscale still image that you could manipulate on your Apple II. In an age before consumer digital cameras, this was quite a novel feat of technical wizardry.

It sold for $349.95 in 1979, which is equivalent to $1,054.24 in 2010 dollars. That’s actually not too bad.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever owned a video capture card? Tell us about it.

“Your Game Boy is about to become a man.”

While I’ve been a fan of Duke Nukem since his initial shareware debut in 1991, I’ve never played this 2D platformer for the Game Boy Color. It arrived relatively fresh on the heels of the mega-success that was Duke Nukem 3D in 1996, along with a handful of other spin-off titles for various game consoles.

The true sequel to Duke Nukem 3D, Duke Nukem Forever, is supposedly coming soon (after 14 years in development hell), and I look forward to playing that when it arrives.

By the way — if you like Duke Nukem, you may enjoy reading this interview of 3D Realms founder and president Scott Miller that I did last year.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Which is the better game: Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, or Quake? (Not just technologically speaking, but based on the overall experience.)

Every once and a while, I receive emails from people looking for a certain game, electronic toy, or computer from their distant past. I then pass it on to intrepid VC&G readers to crack the case.

The Clues

Pete writes:

Hi…

I was thinking about a game I played as a kid, probably came out around 1982-1986 or so. I think it was called Space Shuttle, but I could be wrong. I’ve searched for it online, but all I see are flight simulator type games, and the one I’m looking for was very different.

There was a roster of astronauts with different skills and personality types, and depending who you picked for your crew, they could either get along well or go crazy onboard! One of the astronauts was Fred Pfister, I think, don’t know why I remember that. There was a way to go EVA, and each shuttle mission required you to land and take off. If I recall correctly, you even had to watch how much money you had in the budget – you could make money by carrying satellites and every mission launched had a cost to it.

I think this would have been a Texas Instruments TI 99 4A game, but it could have been a Commodore 64 game too. Any help?

Thanks,
Pete

The Search Begins

It’s up to you to find the object of Pete’s fuzzy memory. Post any thoughts or suggestions in the comments section below. Pete will be monitoring the comments, so if you need to clarify something with him, ask away. Good luck!

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Have a memory of a computer, video game, computer software, or electronic toy you need help identifying? Send me an email describing your memories in detail. Hopefully, the collective genius of the VC&G readership can help solve your mystery.

“…thus we are very skinny.”

Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s your favorite first-person RPG of all time?