WEB@30: The Register pokes around historical hardware of the WWW
- Reference: 1629725413
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/08/23/web_at_30/
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But for those who fancy eyeballing exhibits from acoustic couplers and coffee-cams to dot-matrix printers and cartoon badgers in the venerable author's home town, [1]WEB@30 Cambridge is well worth a look.
The exhibition, which runs until the start of September, occupies a vacant store in Cambridge's Grand Arcade, and gives passers-by the opportunity to get hands on with some delightfully retro hardware in a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web.
[2]
Acoustic coupler modem
6 August 1991 tends to be regarded as when things kicked off, although Tim Berners-Lee had got the requisite components (browser etc) up and running by the end of the previous year. Thirty years on and, well, taking a dip in a warm bath of nostalgia is arguably a good deal more relaxing than pondering what the WWW has become.
[3]
NeXT computer
As well as a NeXT computer (Berners-Lee used one at CERN), the exhibition features a range of functioning retro hardware (originally curated by Jim Boulton), a recreation of the Trojan Room coffee pot webcam, and a Star LC10 dot-matrix printer capable of spitting out ASCII representations of those willing to stand in front of a camera and hit a big red button.
[4]
Recreation of the first webcam
And goodness, it seems quite a few visitors have indeed wandered in over recent weeks. "It's over 3,000 so far," Jason Fitzpatrick, CEO and Founder of The Centre for Computing History, told us.
[5]The web was done right the first time. An ancient 3D banana shows Microsoft does a lot right, too
[6]Sir Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web NFT fetches $5.4m at auction while rest of us gaze upon source code for $0
[7]WWW = Woeful, er, winternet wendering? CERN browser rebuilt after 30 years barely recognizes modern web
[8]The internet is going to hell and its creators want your help fixing it
The WEB@30 exhibition is both similar and quite different to the Cambridge-based Centre for Computing History. The latter is very much a destination, while the former can be strolled into en route to a coffee station or department store in the shopping centre, or from the nearby Raspberry Pi store. It is also free of charge, although encourages the same level of interaction with the kit as that of the full museum.
"This is a little bit more maintenance for us," acknowledged Fitzpatrick, "but this exhibition is now ours, the whole thing has been donated to us."
[9]
The machines in the museum have got to the point where, according to Fitzpatrick, they "are pretty much looking after themselves" but the WEB@30 exhibits have required a little more attention. The team has also augmented the hardware with ephemera: that Encarta CD, old encyclopaedias, fax machines, and so on.
[10]
Shelves of the obsolete
Lurking at the back of the exhibition is a workshop area stuffed with Raspberry Pi computers. While WEB@30 must come to an end in the coming weeks, the experience (and visitor numbers) has got Fitzpatrick thinking.
"What would it be like if the museum stayed where it was in terms of the storage and archives, but the actual display was in the middle of Cambridge somewhere where there was big footfall.
[11]
"All of a sudden you've got an exhibition that appeals to most people… everybody has some kind of affinity with this."
WEB@30 is still running. The range of computers on offer is not as wide as that of the museum, but the theme tying everything together works well, as do the screens showing a variety of memes through the ages.
[12]
Dancing baby, anyone? ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/64614/WEB-30-Exhibition-26th-July-to-3rd-September-2021/
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/08/23/web_at_30_modem.jpg
[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/08/23/web_at_30_next.jpg
[4] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/08/23/web_at_30_coffeecam.jpg
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/11/column_cyberbanana_windows/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/01/world_wide_web_nft_auction/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2019/02/19/cern_browser_reawakened/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2018/12/11/tinternet_needs_work/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YSPGONaWjC2TH3joErcSMgAAAQk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[10] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/08/23/web_at_30_obsolete.jpg
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YSPGONaWjC2TH3joErcSMgAAAQk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YSPGONaWjC2TH3joErcSMgAAAQk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Wot, no FX-80 ?
Those were the days of the Qume Sprint 10 - a daisy that ran like a big clacky clickety wobbly foundation-cracking thing. :-)
Not as fast as the huge 132 column band printer we inherited from the council billing department. Even watching the steel band at full speed made you wish for something safer - like an untethered grizzly bear. The noise it made and it's speed were something to behold. One rotation of the type band was three complete character sets ... ASCII art just flew through :-)
Then there was the wide format drum printer - the stainless type drum must have weighed 30Kgs - but was perfectly balanced and whisper quiet so seemed somewhat sedate as it whirred up to speed ... Then the hammers started - an oscillating bar of 44, each servicing three columns of characters, which potentially could smack the page all at the same time so one line per 3 rotations of the drum - that thing just ate paper.
Re: Wot, no FX-80 ?
a lovely old daisywheel printer. great for doing text only system documents
In the days when I was an academic one of our brighter postgrads programmed up graphics for the daisy wheel printer, using full stops and the ability to fine position text. Worked wonderfully(*) until fatigue set in, at which point the petal with the full stop would snap off and fly across the room.
(*) But needed ear defenders.
What - an exhibition of stuff I used to use?
(Shudder) I've put those days behind me now...
Can still recall the SKWERRRK SKWERRRRK of an Epson LX printer doing graphical dot-matrix printering.
Good memories. And had a lot of fun too.
Those days them purdy compootas was more personal. And hands-on, unlike today's Fisher-Price things. *sniff*
Today you can just plug it into power, start it up, give it an username and password for your account, and away you go.
Dot matrix? Luxury!
When I were a lad I had one of those QL printers, that used some sort of electric discharge to deposit stuff on the paper.
Each row of dots was done one at a time back and forth, leading to a distinctly wavy quality to the printout. And a faint smell of ozone.
Colour me interested
A week at home with the kids suggests that a impromptu trip to Cambridge may be in order!
Re: Colour me interested
I was going to the market tomorrow anyway, so will take a detour through the Grand Arcade.
Wot, no FX-80 ?
A Star LC-10, but no FX-80 ? Goodness me.
Hopefully it doesn't have an acoustic hood so visitors can bask in the full glory of all those pins hitting the paper. Maybe it might even shake itself off the table.
A place I worked in 1991 had a lovely old daisywheel printer. great for doing text only system documents, though we tended to fill it with paper and set it on its way when we went for lunch.