 NCSA Mosaic 1.2 for Unix | |
| Original author(s) | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | NCSA |
| Initial release | 0.5 / January 23, 1993; 32 years ago (1993-01-23)[1] |
| Final release | 3.0  / 7 January 1997; 28 years ago (7 January 1997) |
| Written in | C[2] |
| Platform | |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Web browser |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | www |
| Internet history timeline |
Early research and development:
Merging the networks and creating the Internet:
Commercialization, privatization, broader access leads to the modern Internet:
Examples of Internet services:
|
NCSA Mosaic was among the first widely availableweb browsers, instrumental in popularizing theWorld Wide Web and the generalInternet by integratingmultimedia such as text and graphics.[3][4][5] Mosaic was the first browser to display images inline with text (instead of a separate window).[6]
Named for supporting multipleInternet protocols, includingHypertext Transfer Protocol,File Transfer Protocol,Network News Transfer Protocol, andGopher,[7] its intuitive interface, reliability, personal computer support, and simple installation all contributed to Mosaic's initial popularity.[8] Mistakenly described as the first graphical web browser, it was preceded byWorldWideWeb, the lesser-knownErwise,[9] andViolaWWW.
Mosaic was developed at theNational Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)[6] at theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign beginning in late 1992, released in January 1993,[10] with official development and support until January 1997.[11] Mosaic lost market share toNetscape Navigator in late 1994,[12] and had only a tiny fraction of users left by 1997, when the project was discontinued. Microsoft licensed one of the derivative commercial products, Spyglass Mosaic, to createInternet Explorer in 1995.
In 1991, theHigh Performance Computing Act of 1991 was passed, which provided funding for new projects at the NCSA, where after tryingViolaWWW,David Thompson demonstrated it to the NCSA software design group.[13] This inspiredMarc Andreessen andEric Bina – two programmers working at NCSA – to create Mosaic. Andreessen and Bina began developing Mosaic in February 1991 for Unix'sX Window System, calling itxmosaic.[6][10][13][14] Marc Andreessen announced the project's first release, the "alpha/beta version 0.5," on January 23, 1993.[15] Version 1.0 was released on April 21, 1993.[16] Ports to Microsoft Windows andMacintosh were released in September.[13] Aport of Mosaic to theAmiga was available by October 1993. NCSA Mosaic for Unix (X Window System) version 2.0 was released on November 10, 1993[17] and was notable for adding support forforms, thus enabling the creation of the firstdynamic web pages. From 1994 to 1997, theNational Science Foundation supported the further development of Mosaic.[18]
Marc Andreessen, the leader of the team that developed Mosaic, left NCSA and, withJames H. Clark, one of the founders ofSilicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI), and four other former students and staff of theUniversity of Illinois, started Mosaic Communications Corporation. Mosaic Communications eventually becameNetscape Communications Corporation, producingNetscape Navigator. Mosaic's popularity as a separate browser began to decrease after the 1994 release ofNetscape Navigator, the relevance of which was noted inThe HTML Sourcebook: The Complete Guide to HTML: "Netscape Communications has designed an all-new WWW browser Netscape, that has significant enhancements over the original Mosaic program."[19]: 332
In 1994,SCO released Global Access, a modified version ofSCO's Open Desktop Unix, which became the first commercial product to incorporate Mosaic.[20] However, by 1998, the Mosaic user base had almost completely evaporated as users moved to other web browsers.
The licensing terms for NCSA Mosaic were generous for a proprietary software program. In general, non-commercial use was free of charge for all versions (with certain limitations). Additionally, the X Window System/Unix version publicly providedsource code (source code for the other versions was available after agreements were signed). Despite persistent rumors to the contrary, however, Mosaic was never released asopen source software during its brief reign as a major browser; there were always constraints on permissible uses without payment.
As of 1993[update], license holders included these:[21]
Robert Reid notes that Andreessen's team hoped:
... to rectify many of the shortcomings of the very primitive prototypes then floating around the Internet. Most significantly, their work transformed the appeal of the Web from niche uses in the technical area to mass-market appeal. In particular, these University of Illinois students made two key changes to the Web browser, which hyper-boosted its appeal: they added graphics to what was otherwise boring text-based software, and, most importantly, they ported the software from so-calledUnix computers that are popular only in technical and academic circles, to the [Microsoft] Windows operating system, which is used on more than 80 percent of the computers in the world, especially personal and commercial computers.[23]: xxv
Mosaic is based on thelibwwwlibrary[24][25][26] and thus supported a wide variety ofInternet protocols included in the library:Archie,FTP,gopher,HTTP,NNTP,telnet,WAIS.[10]
Mosaic is not the first web browser for Microsoft Windows; this isThomas R. Bruce's little-knownCello. The Unix version of Mosaic was already famous before the Microsoft Windows, Amiga, and Mac versions were released. Other than displaying images embedded in the text (rather than in a separate window), Mosaic's original feature set is similar to the browsers on which it was modeled, such as ViolaWWW.[6] But Mosaic was the first browser written and supported by a team of full-time programmers, was reliable and easy enough for novices to install, and the inline graphics proved immensely appealing. Mosaic is said to have made the Internet accessible to the ordinary person.
Mosaic was the first browser to explore the concept ofcollaborative annotation in 1993[27] but never passed the test state.[28]
Mosaic was the first browser that could submitforms to a server.[29][30]
Mosaic led to theInternet boom of the 1990s.[23]: xlii Other browsers existed during this period, such asErwise,ViolaWWW,MidasWWW, andtkWWW, but did not have the same effect as Mosaic on public use of the Internet.[31]
In the October 1994 issue ofWired magazine, Gary Wolfe notes in the article titled "The (Second Phase of the) Revolution Has Begun: Don't look now, butProdigy,AOL, andCompuServe are all suddenly obsolete – and Mosaic is well on its way to becoming the world's standard interface":
When it comes to smashing a paradigm, pleasure is not the most important thing. It is the only thing. If this sounds wrong, consider Mosaic. Mosaic is the celebrated graphical "browser" that allows users to travel through the world of electronic information using a point-and-click interface. Mosaic's charming appearance encourages users to load their own documents onto the Net, including color photos, sound bites, video clips, and hypertext "links" to other documents. By following the links – click, and the linked document appears – you can travel through the online world along paths of whim and intuition. Mosaic is not the most direct way to find online information. Nor is it the most powerful. It is merely the most pleasurable way, and in the 18 months since it was released, Mosaic has incited a rush of excitement and commercial energy unprecedented in the history of the Net.[21]
Reid also refers to Matthew K. Gray's website,Internet Statistics: Growth and Usage of the Web and the Internet, which indicates a dramatic leap in web use around the time of Mosaic's introduction.[23]: xxv
David Hudson concurs with Reid:
Marc Andreessen's realization of Mosaic, based on the work ofBerners-Lee and the hypertext theorists before him, is generally recognized as the beginning of the web as it is now known. Mosaic, the first web browser to win over the Net masses, was released in 1993 and made freely accessible to the public. The adjective phenomenal, so often overused in this industry, is genuinely applicable to the... 'explosion' in the growth of the web after Mosaic appeared on the scene. Starting with next to nothing, the rates of the web growth (quoted in the press) hovering around tens of thousands of percent over ridiculously short periods of time were no real surprise.[32]: 42
Ultimately, web browsers such as Mosaic became thekiller applications of the 1990s. Web browsers were the first to bring a graphical interface to search tools the Internet's burgeoning wealth of distributed information services. A mid-1994 guide lists Mosaic alongside the traditional, text-oriented information search tools of the time,Archie andVeronica,Gopher, andWAIS[33] but Mosaic quickly subsumed and displaced them all. Joseph Hardin, the director of the NCSA group within which Mosaic was developed, said downloads were up to 50,000 a month in mid-1994.[34]
In November 1992, there were twenty-six websites in the world[35] and each one attracted attention. In its release year of 1993, Mosaic had a What's New page, and about one new link was being added per day. This was a time when access to the Internet was expanding rapidly outside its previous domain of academia and large industrial research institutions. Yet it was the availability of Mosaic and Mosaic-derived graphical browsers themselves that drove the explosive growth of the Web to over 10,000 sites by August 1995 and millions by 1998.[36] Metcalfe expressed the pivotal role of Mosaic this way:
In the Web's first generation, Tim Berners-Lee launched the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and HTML standards with prototype Unix-based servers and browsers. A few people noticed that the Web might be better than Gopher.
In the second generation, Marc Andreessen andEric Bina developed NCSA Mosaic at the University of Illinois. Several million then suddenly noticed that the Web might be better than sex.
In the third generation, Andreessen and Bina left NCSA to found Netscape...
Netscape Navigator was later developed byNetscape, which employed many of the original Mosaic authors; however, it intentionally shared no code with Mosaic. Netscape Navigator's code descendant isMozilla Firefox.[39][page needed]
Spyglass, Inc. licensed the technology and trademarks from NCSA for producing its own web browser but never used any of the NCSA Mosaic source code.[40]Microsoft licensed Spyglass Mosaic in 1995 forUS$2 million, modified it, and renamed itInternet Explorer.[41] After a later auditing dispute, Microsoft paid Spyglass $8 million.[41][42] The 1995 user guideThe HTML Sourcebook: The Complete Guide to HTML, specifically states, in a section calledComing Attractions, that Internet Explorer "will be based on the Mosaic program".[19]: 331 Versions of Internet Explorer beforeversion 7 stated "Based on NCSA Mosaic" in the About box. Internet Explorer 7 was audited by Microsoft to ensure that it contained no Spyglass Mosaic code,[43] and thus no longer credits Spyglass or Mosaic.
After NCSA stopped work on Mosaic, development of the NCSA Mosaic for the X Window System source code was continued by several independent groups. These independent development efforts include mMosaic (multicast Mosaic)[44] which ceased development in early 2004, and Mosaic-CK and VMS Mosaic.
VMS Mosaic, a version specifically targetingOpenVMS operating system, is one of the longest-lived efforts to maintain Mosaic. Using the VMS support already built-in in original version (Bjorn S. Nilsson ported Mosaic 1.2 to VMS in the summer of 1993),[45] developers incorporated a substantial part of the HTML engine from mMosaic, another defunct flavor of the browser.[46] As of the most recent version (4.2), released in 2007, VMS Mosaic supportedHTML 4.0,OpenSSL,cookies, and various image formats includingGIF,JPEG,PNG,BMP,TGA,TIFF andJPEG 2000 image formats.[47] The browser works onVAX,Alpha, andItanium platforms.[48]
Another long-lived version,Mosaic-CK, developed by Cameron Kaiser, was last released (version 2.7ck9) on July 11, 2010; a maintenance release with minor compatibility fixes (version 2.7ck10) was released on January 9, 2015, followed by another one (2.7ck11) in October 2015.[49] The stated goal of the project is "Lynx with graphics" and runs on Mac OS X, PowerMachTen,Linux and other compatible Unix-likeOSs.[49]
The X, Windows, and Mac versions of Mosaic all had separate development teams and code bases.
| Internal Build | Pre-release | Stable release |
| Series | Version | Release date | Notes & features | Supported platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
0.x | 0.1 | Dec, 1992 | Browse plaintext and HTML documents, Gopher servers, anonymous FTP servers, and local files; HTTP/0.9 | |
| 0.2 | Fixed fatal bug in 0.1 | |||
| 0.3 | Support for NCSA's DTM (broadcasts documents to real-time networked workgroup collaboration sessions) | |||
| 0.4 | ||||
| 0.5 | Jan 23, 1993 | Initial public release (asNCSA X Mosaic). Save/mail/print; History list; On-the-fly font selection; Hotlist | ||
| 0.6 | Jan 31, 1993 | Different colors for visited links; Specify a start page | ||
| 0.7 | Feb 11, 1993 | Links are now underlined; Able to mouse-select each character of text on a web page; Annotations; Program logo in top-right corner (predecessor tothrobber) | ||
| 0.8 | Feb 14, 1993 | |||
| 0.9 | Mar 4, 1993 | Audio annotations (SGI only); Product name changed toNCSA Mosaic for the X Window System | ||
| 0.10 | Mar 14, 1993 | Introduced<IMG> tag: inlined images (GIF &XBM) in HTML documents; Find in page | ||
| 0.11 | Mar 17, 1993 | |||
| 0.12 | Apr 5, 1993 | Support for<OL>,<TT>,<B>,<I>,<EM>,<STRONG>,<CODE>,<SAMP>,<KBD>,<VAR> | ||
| 0.13 | Apr 12, 1993 | |||
1.x | 1.0 | Apr 21, 1993 | ||
| 1.1-pre1 | May 31, 1993 | |||
| 1.1-pre2 | Jun 2, 1993 | |||
| 1.1 | Jun 4, 1993 | Image map support; Print/save toPostScript; Support for<CITE> and<BLOCKQUOTE>; Support for group annotation servers | ||
| 1.2 | Jun 30, 1993 | Support for file://localhost/ scheme for accessing local files; Many bug fixes and under-hood improvements | ||
2.x | 2.0-pre0 | Jul 21, 1993 | Displays the URL when mouse hovers over a link; "Search Keyword" area removed from bottom (moved to menu dialog box) | |
| 2.0-pre1 | Aug 2, 1993 | |||
| 2.0-pre2 | Aug 10, 1993 | Reload button now also reloads images | ||
| 2.0-pre3 | Sep 5, 1993 | Support forforms; Support for<BR>,<HR>,<STRIKE>; HTTP/1.0 compliant | ||
| 2.0-pre4 | Sep 29, 1993 | Can stop page loading;<IMG ALIGN> attribute support | ||
| 2.0-pre5 | Oct 10, 1993 | FormINPUT types ofRADIO,PASSWORD,OPTION added; Program logo becomes a throbber (now animates during page loads) | ||
| 2.0-pre6 | Oct 20, 1993 | |||
| 2.0-pre7 | Nov 2, 1993 | |||
| 2.0-pre8 | Nov 7, 1993 | New colorful spinning globe throbber | ||
| 2.0 | Nov 10, 1993 | SunOS 4.1.3 Solaris 2.3 AIX 3.2.4 with X11R5 IRIX 4.x DEC alpha (OSF/1) DEC Ultrix HP/UX 9.x (700 Series) | ||
| 2.1 | Dec 11, 1993 | |||
| 2.2 | Feb 9, 1994 | All from 2.1 + IRIX 5.1.x | ||
| 2.3 | Apr 8, 1994 | |||
| 2.4 | Apr 11, 1994 | Fixes a major bug with forms introduced in 2.3; Last widely used release ofNCSA Mosaic for X | ||
| 2.5 alpha 1 | Sep 22, 1994 | Limited support for tables; Kiosk Mode; Nested Hotlists; Common Client Interface (CCI) API | SunOS 4.1.3 Solaris 2.3 AIX 3.2.4 IRIX 4.0.x and 5.x DEC alpha (OSF/1 1.3 and 3.0) DEC Ultrix 4.x HP/UX 7.x, 8.x, 9.x Linux 1.1.94 | |
| 2.5 beta 1 | Support for<SUP> and<SUB> | |||
| 2.5 beta 2 | Oct 11, 1994 | Removed the word "Document" from the Title and URL fields | ||
| 2.5 beta 3 | Dec 22, 1994 | Support for<U> (underline) | ||
| 2.5 beta 4 | ||||
| 2.5 beta 5 | Mar 4, 1995 | |||
| 2.5 | Mar 12, 1995 | |||
| 2.6 alpha 1 | Inline JPEGs; Can now enter URLs directly into theaddress bar and press return to load them; Support formailto: links | All from 2.5 + Solaris 2.4 | ||
| 2.6 alpha 2 | ||||
| 2.6 beta 1 | Apr 6, 1995 | |||
| 2.6 beta 2 | May 20, 1995 | |||
| 2.6 beta 3 | ||||
| 2.6 | Jul 6, 1995 | Official "final" release | ||
| 2.7 beta 1 | Jul 27, 1995 | Inline PNGs; Support forSSL (MD5 &Kerberos 4/5); Security Icon in lower-left corner of window;Keepalive connections | SunOS 4.1.3 Solaris 2.3 and 2.4 AIX 4.4 IRIX 4.0.x and 5.x DEC alpha (OSF/1 1.3 and 3.0) DEC Ultrix 4.x HP/UX 7.x, 8.x, 9.x Linux 1.2.13 BSD/OS 2.1 | |
| 2.7 beta 2 | Oct 19, 1995 | Document title moved to window Title Bar; Load progress bar in lower-right corner of window | ||
| 2.7 beta 3 | Feb 26, 1996 | Background colors; Can enter URLs without http:// prefix; Detachable Toolbar; Contextual right-click menus; Support forborder attribute for linked images;action=mailto support in forms;Splash screen; Customizable Throbber; New application icons | ||
| 2.7 beta 4 | Mar 30, 1996 | Background Images; Cleaned up and colorized toolbar icons; User Agent spoofing | ||
| 2.7 beta 5 | Jul 18, 1996 | Printing in Kiosk Mode | All from 2.7b4 + SCO System V 3.2 | |
| 2.8 alpha 1 | Aug 20, 1996 | A complete re-write code named "Project: Hyperion": Supports HTML 3.2; Options for loose or strict HTML parsing; Style sheets | ||
| 2.8 alpha 2 | Sep 10, 1996 | |||
| 2.8 alpha 3 | Nov 14, 1996 |
| Series | Version | Release date | Notes & features |
|---|---|---|---|
0.x | 0.1a | Jun, 1993 | Support for inline GIFs; Support for.au sound files; Optional status bar to display hyperlink destinations; Customizable font selection |
| 0.2a | Local file support; User-configurable Hotlist | ||
| 0.3a | Support for inline XBMs; Option to set a start page; Support forAIFF sound files | ||
| 0.4a | Support for<BR>,<B>, and<I> | ||
| 0.5a | Sep 16, 1993 | Find in page; Image caching; Much faster scrolling; Hyperlinks to anchors within a document; Standard file dialog to open files on local disk; Drag and Drop local files into browser | |
| 0.6b | Sep 28, 1993 | Image map support; Support for<HR>; Scrolling via keys | |
| 0.7b | Oct 17,1993 | Document caching; HTTP/1.0 compliant | |
1.x | 1.0 | Nov 11, 1993 | Can stop page loading; Images can now be aligned middle, top, or bottom; Better looking horizontal rules |
2.x | 2.0 alpha 1 | Jan 31, 1994 | Support for forms; Inlined image caching across pages |
| 2.0 alpha 2 | Feb 28, 1994 | New Hotlist/Menu UI; DNS caching; Faster GIF decoding; Support for formINPUT typeHIDDEN | |
| 2.0 alpha 3 | Apr 6, 1994 | Application is now 32-bit; Can now print documents; Viewing and saving document source; Support for<EM> and<STRONG>; Horizontal scrollbars for documents wider than the screen | |
| 2.0 alpha 4 | Apr 14, 1994 | ||
| 2.0 alpha 5 | Jun 24, 1994 | Can now enter URLs directly into the address bar and press return to load them; Colorized toolbar icons; XBM images decode 100 times faster | |
| 2.0 alpha 6 | Jul 27, 1994 | "Document Title:" bar removed (document title moved to window Title Bar), "Document URL:" caption shortened to just "URL:" for address bar; Smaller Throbber; Links are now underlined; Kiosk Mode; Speed improvements; Memory issue fixes | |
| 2.0 alpha 7 | Sep 7, 1994 | Throbber changes size relative to how many toolbars are shown; Mouse-over tooltips added | |
| 2.0 alpha 8 | Dec 20, 1994 | Support for tables; Support for<U>,<S>/<STRIKE>,<SUP>/<SUPER>,<SUB>; Support for transparent GIFs; No longer crashes when encountering bad HTML; Refined Throbber graphics (wires) | |
| 2.0 alpha 9 | Jan 25, 1995 | Cancel and Check buttons added next to address bar; Presentation mode; Right-click menu options; Support formailto: links | |
| 2.0.0 beta 1 | Mar 13, 1995 | Inline JPEGs; Support forALT information inIMG tags; Can now tab from one form field to another; Hotlist Manager; Splash screen; +/- keys to change font sizes; | |
| 2.0.0 beta 2 | Mar 23, 1995 | Support for multiplemailto: | |
| 2.0.0 beta 3 | Mar 28, 1995 | 256 character URL limit fixed | |
| 2.0.0 beta 4 | Apr 6, 1995 | Global History; New HTML 3.0 tag attributes; URL bar is now also a list box | |
| 2.0.0 final beta | Jul 12, 1995 | Speed and printing improvements | |
| 2.0.0 | Oct 11, 1995 | Discrete Stop Button in toolbar; Collaborative Sessions; Advanced Hotlist Manager; Internal support for.wav sound files; Internal .au support removed; Printing improvements | |
| 2.1.0 | Mar 14, 1996 | Support for client-side image maps; Support for KodakPhoto CD (.pcd) image format | |
| 2.1.1 | Mar 25, 1996 | Fixed inline JPEGs not working with inline Kodak Photo CD images | |
3.x | 3.0 | Jan 7, 1997 | Final Release |
| Series | Version | Release date | Notes & features |
|---|---|---|---|
1.x | 1.0 | Nov 10, 1993 | Background color is white by default (differing from X and Windows versions) |
| 1.0.1 | Nov 29, 1993 | ||
| 1.0.2 | Dec 17, 1993 | ||
| 1.0.3 | Jan 27, 1994 | Fixed serious crashes; Improved speed | |
2.x | 2.0 alpha 1 | Jun 10, 1994 | Support for forms and tables; Users can now enter URLs directly into the address bar and press return to load them (URL bar is hidden by default); Background color is now gray by default (like X and Windows versions); Support for<S>,<SUP>,<SUB>; Reload button; New Hotlist interface |
| 2.0 alpha 2 | Jun 21, 1994 | ||
| 2.0 alpha 3 | Jul 12, 1994 | ||
| 2.0 alpha 6 | Jul 26, 1994 | ||
| 2.0 alpha 8 | Sep 16, 1994 | ||
| 2.0 alpha 17 | Nov 14, 1994 | ||
| 2.0 beta 1 | Mar 6, 1995 | Inline JPEGs; Support formailto: links | |
| 2.0 beta 2 | |||
| 2.0 beta 3 | Mar 15, 1995 | ||
| 2.0 beta 4 | |||
| 2.0 beta 5 | Apr 6, 1995 | ||
| 2.0 beta 6 | HTML Parser is much faster; Throbber globe wires now display moving arrows and yellow ball proportional to percent of page loaded; Support for<CENTER>,<BIG>,<SMALL>, andIMG tagALIGN=LEFT/RIGHT attributes | ||
| 2.0 beta 7 | Apr 27, 1995 | ||
| 2.0 beta 8 | Support for<P ALIGN>; Image alignment improvements | ||
| 2.0 beta 9 | May 5, 1995 | ||
| 2.0 beta 10 | |||
| 2.0 beta 11 | |||
| 2.0 beta 12 | Jun 1, 1995 | ||
| 2.0 beta 13 | Support for background images | ||
| 2.0 beta 14 | |||
| 2.0.0 | |||
| 2.0.1 | Sep 28, 1995 | Fixed some table rendering bugs | |
3.x | 3.0.0 beta 1 | Apr 15, 1996 | |
| 3.0.0 beta 2 | Apr 25, 1996 | ||
| 3.0.0 beta 3 | Jul 30, 1996 | ||
| 3.0.0 beta 4 | Sep 12, 1996 | ||
| 3.0 | Jan 7, 1997 | Final Release - Nested tables; Removed frames support that was present in 3.0.0 betas |