Internet inventor honoured today- an Englishman?

I think this man is a saint.

Just think of the money he could have made for himself- but he didn't.
The result, the Web.

McTag- What amazes me is that he accomplished what he did when he was 35. Fantastic...........What a legacy!

Thing about the "internet" is that it's comprised of so many technologies and breakthroughs that a whole lot of people lay claim to inventing it.

In some cases people who laid no claim to inventing it are said to have claimed it by others (Al Gore).

In any case this man did not have anything to do with the invention of the internet.

The internet was around for years before his invention. The articles wording is more precise and does not make the claim that he invented the "internet". Which he didn't.

No you're wrong Craven, or less than generous at least.
Berners-Lee made the international Web to function. It was a very parochial thing before his development.

"Many people mistakenly believe that the mouse was invented by Apple. Others believe that Steve Jobs stole the idea from Xerox, where the mouse was used on an early office PC called the Star. But in truth, the mouse was first conceived of by Doug Engelbart in the early 1960's, then a scientist at the Stanford Research Institute, in Menlo Park, California. SuperKids recently visited with Doug in the offices of his current venture, Bootstrap, Inc." (quoted from a Bootstrap press release)


More than enough glory to go around in our brave new world (thank you, Miranda) for all to be proud . . .


McT, three cheers and a tiger for Dr. Tim Berners-Lee ! ! !

I was on the internet back when it was the BIT-net and little more than a network of universities and research institutions run by the Pentagon. It was Berners-Lee's invention of HTML and his decision to make it free and available to anyone that made it a world wide institution. I would argue that he did invent the internet,

You know, Acq, i read an excellent little book on the Ma-Bell hackers who used their Admirals and the family rec room tv to rip the communications giant for long-distance charges, in order to visit bulletin boards. Unfortunately, i've not been able to find the book (mine often grow legs), and can't find a title for it . . . it was an interesting look at a wide open form of communication, nearly unregulated and almost completely ignored by the society.

I had a British professor for a networking class I took in college and he tried to emphasize the fact that Britain had its share of contributions. They also made a signifcant contribution to modem modulation.

But no one person invented the internet.

Acquiunk,

You would, as McTag, argue incorrectly.

There is a difference between the world wide web and an internet.

As you note, internets existed before Tim Berners-Lee's contributions.

It's not a quibble, it's a two very different phases in the growth of what's now called the "internet".

It would be like saying Gutenberg invented books. The printing press did indeed revolutionize bookmaking and did have an immeduate impact on the availablility of literature, but he did not invent the book.

Tim Berners-Lee's contributions were fundamental to the WWW, the protocols he had a hand in shaping helped move intranets into the mainstream, but internets existed years beforehand and were not his invention.

Tim Berners-Lee made incredible contributions, heck he made the first browser (WorldWideWeb). But the first huge steps in the web of connected computers was the idea to connect them in the first place and then to exchange resources and information.

This concept was realized years before his contributions.

In short, no, he did not invent the "internet", he invented protocols and standards that comprise the "World Wide Web" as we know it.

Note that one can very easily make an "internet" that is not part of the "World Wide Web". The "World Wide Web" is a network, just like a home or office network in concept.

Anyone who has a network has an "intranet" (or "internet"). The WWW is the grand realization of the concept. The concept and implementation existed before Tim Berners-Lee's contributions.

This is why the article cited does not say he invented the "internet" but rather the "World Wide Web".

Well, this is an interesting discussion!

From "Ask Jeeves"
This just came off the "Ask Jeeves" site with the query, "Who Invented the Internet?"

http://www.lk.cs.ucla.edu/

Dr. Leonard Kleinrock is known as the Inventor of the Internet Technology, having created the basic principles of packet switching, the technology underpinning the Internet, while a graduate student at MIT. This was a decade before the birth of the Internet which occurred when his Host computer at UCLA became the first node of the Internet in September 1969. He wrote the first paper and published the first book on the subject; he also directed the transmission of the first message ever to pass over the Internet. He was listed by the Los Angeles Times in 1999 as among the `50 People Who Most Influenced Business This Century'. . . .

Well thanks Craven, in a roundabout and more informed way I think you made my point for me, which was that Tim Berners-Lee made the World Wide Web work and we couldn't be writing like this today were it not for him.

And, he did it for free, he did not try to keep the benefits for himself, he wanted free access for anybody.
Therefore, it grew as it did, and we all are the beneficiaries.
So well done Tim, here's to you.

Oh heck yeah, no knock on Tim. His contributions were toward the only network most people think of when they think of networks.

But kudos to the many others who laid the foundation and who helped make the original step (networking computers) a reality.

The other contributions started in the late 40's while Tim's came in the late 80's and early 90's.