The World's First Web Server

In a glass case at CERN is an unpreposessing little NeXT cube. It's hard to believe that this little workstation changed the world, but it did. It's Tim Berners Lee's original web server, the world's first.

The little server that did.

Geneva, Switzerland
November 2006

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Comments

Sergio Mtz-Losa says:

oh my god ! the first webserver was a NeXT, i love this machines, STEVE forever!!
Posted 38 months ago. ( permalink )

Felixe says:

[joke]
NeXT was so ahead of its time it must have been ready to blog, photoblog, vblog and playing Second Life right out of the box.
[/joke]
Posted 38 months ago. ( permalink )

frosklis says:

What year was this?
Posted 37 months ago. ( permalink )

Lean (inkel) says:

just... wonderful!!!
Posted 37 months ago. ( permalink )

hemshelicopter says:

Wonder if it would power up?
Posted 17 months ago. ( permalink )

Josiah Roe says:

That's beautiful!
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

borud says:

I have one of those and we managed to power it up and fiddle around with it. What would have been really cool was if I could get my hands on the original webserver software to put on it.
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

bkusler says:

steve jobs invented the internet! :P
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

phlatphrog says:

You gotta love that mouse. Completely the opposite of the '98 hockey puck mouse.
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

bballpro says:

www.ihatemindy.com/index.php?c=viral&m=in dex&id=5...
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

chuckwolfe0 says:

gopher on steroids and people cum at this?
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

kertong says:

I used to have one of these - I didn't do much with it, but it was nice to have if only to pay homage to the grandfather of OSX.
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

loveksj says:

next was only made by jobs because he got fired for being a dick at apple.

Web server is not translated as the Internet, this was the first web server for the World Wide Web.
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

kernsy says:

that there thing had the whole interwebs on it?
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

kattanapilot says:

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Data Center, and we'd love to have this added to the group!
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

Furee says:

what's the label on the tower say?
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

parhessiastes says:

To think that the web started with an OS based on BSD/UNIX!
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

mrarchey says:

"This machine is a server, DO NOT POWER IT DOWN!!"
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

rae says:

Although it was the first web server, it had hardly any of the things you would expect in a web server -- support for images, cgi etc. -- and was not widly used. The first widly-distributed and much more functional web server was NCSA httpd hoohoo.ncsa.illinois.edu which was forked into a patched server that was so patch-y it was named Apache. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCSA_HTTPd

Interestingly enough, NCSA also came up with the first widly-distributed browser, NCSA Mosaic en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser), the source code for which was the basis of Mosaic, later renamed to Netscape, later branched to Mozilla, later forked into Firefox. That's a lot of laters. :-)
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

killyp says:

been there. seen that.
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

k1mb3r1y says:

Actually, Apache was named as a summation of Patch A through patch E on NCSA's original webserver software. ApatchE, in other words. The "patchy" story didn't happen until the late 90s.
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

JJ San says:

Very cool! Just brought back memories of my first encounter with a NeXT machine in a Stanford dorm computer cluster. I think I sent my first email from that one with the built-in email program that would send "voice emails" as attached .bin files to your unsuspecting non-NeXT friends across the country. But I first experienced the web on the Apple sitting right next to it. Either way, thanks Mr. Jobs :)
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

eeepcnews says:

hehe, i had one, too :p
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

YellowRaindrop says:

What i find amazing is that the first web server was BLACK.

Then some genius thought, oh,.. let's start making computers in white and beige. Let's also make the beige fade and turn yellow over time.
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

joshersbob says:

This is also such a great photo because I think it's just so funny how it saves energy

Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

Drum says:

They should fire it up and serve this pic from it. How recursive would that be?
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

.Shukri says:

"This machine is a server, DO NOT POWER IT DOWN!!" ... just to think, at one stage the cleaning guy really _could_ have taken down the whole internet by mistake.
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

desertdragon says:

All hail the progenitor of the web :-))
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

chandlerpoling says:

What's that low-tech text displayer on the the right there? It looks pretty antiquated, but useful. Oh, that's a book!
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

lupofoto says:

Steve Jobs saves the world... again!
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

Remco Douma says:

Very neat, didn't know it was a NeXT.
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

liewcf says:

thanks for the photo. I wrote a blog post about it at www.liewcf.com/blog/archives/2009/05/what-you -didnt-know-...
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

jon madison says:

ah yes, NeXT for the win!
we had some of the first batches at Rose-Hulman!

"your printer is out of paper.....paper is jaaamed in your printer...."

great great great little boxes.
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

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Taken in Mategnin, Canton of Geneva (map)
Taken with a Canon PowerShot S70.
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Taken on November 14, 2006
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