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tylerdane 2026-02-20 23:19 UTC link

Direct link to the browser: https://worldwideweb.cern.ch/browser/

jmclnx 2026-02-20 23:41 UTC link

Interesting, for some reason I thought lynx was the first browser. I thought I read that a while ago.

But it makes sense it is a GUI browser since it was developed on a NeXT

lysace 2026-02-20 23:47 UTC link

It's a javascript-based imitation, much like all of those js-based imitations of various Windows versions.

The original source code isn't really involved, which is a shame, since it is actually available.

IMHO this should have been (something along the lines of) GNUstep + TimBL's original code (mirror: https://github.com/cynthia/WorldWideWeb) + Emscripten + getting Emscripten to work with ObjC. Now, that would have been cool.

This is the most commented HN posting on this from that time (2019):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19249373

java-man 2026-02-21 00:13 UTC link

All the links should point to the 1989 internet instead of "Not Found"

:-)

fsloth 2026-02-21 00:28 UTC link

Fun fact: Erwise[0] was the first _graphical_ browser developed by a group of students in Helsinki University of Technology with Sir Berners Lee. Sadly there was no funding in Finland available at the time and they had to abandon the project and most of the group ended up working at Tekla, contributing to a bunch of cool AEC CAD technology (Tekla is now a Trimble subsidiary).

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwise

gerdesj 2026-02-21 01:49 UTC link

In 1992ish I worked at RNEC Manadon (UK, Devon). I was asked by my boss to investigate this new www thing.

I telnetted to the nearest VAX from my Win 3.1 PC. I then telnetted to the X.25 PAD and used that to go via the US to Switzerland and CERN. It looked just like gopher and WAIS to me and that's how I reported back - "it looks the same as gopher".

When Tim BL invented www, html and that, browsers were telnet and graphics was a nonsense.

hackingonempty 2026-02-21 02:02 UTC link

It has been about 16 years since I fired up my old NeXTStation Color where I had a copy of 1.0 or a late beta.

The last time I tried about the only site that worked was useit.com, former home of Nielsen Norman UX experts ;-)

ChrisArchitect 2026-02-21 02:33 UTC link

(2019)

Some previous discussions:

2023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34218591

2021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26680839

2020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25013103

2019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19249373

jibal 2026-02-21 02:50 UTC link

> The WWW project does not take responsability

I guess that let them off the hook for incorrect spelling. :-)

mistrial9 2026-02-21 03:22 UTC link

network users at that time already had software for ftp and other common tools. Gopher sort of linked logically to an ftp idea. Mosaic was often introduced in the same sentence as "uses a format called HTML" .. Mosaic seemed interesting but also it was obvious that pages in that format would have to become popular, to make more of them. There wasn't a big reason to switch your daily software to Mosaic since stable apps were better for their existing uses. It was a very rare thing to have access to a NeXT machine (maybe not on YNews).

From my point of view it was Netscape that made a big splash, a year+ later, with a lot of publicity and good graphic design. Mosaic itself was an awkward demo with an interesting nerdy story.

keepamovin 2026-02-21 04:31 UTC link

I love what the CERN team did here visually with the NeXT UI. Rebuilding a historical browser inside a modern one is a fun rabbit hole, but man, it is the same technical wall to hit every time: iframes.

You build this beautiful retro UI, you wire up the address bar, and then you try to load a modern site and just hit a wall of CORS, X-Frame-Options, and CSP blocks. Which, tho is probably precisely things should work. Otherwise people arbitrarily iframe the open web opening up a massive clickjacking-pocalypse. It makes total sense for security....sigh.

But I sitll wanted a way to get around it to capture that 90s nostalgia (tho NeXT and this browser were actually from the late 80s), the real open web inside a retro recreation not just a crippled, iframe-blocked imitation. Or "everything links to archive org" stuff.

To make that work, I had to make a custom embedder API. It basically pipes a fully isolated remote Chromium instance right into the retro shell through an iframe in a custom element. The engine is real, and it respects the native security boundaries because the browser is physically isolated, but it wears that heavy 90s UI so you get the 90s feel.

If you want to mess around with a different flavor of 90s nostalgia that can actually surf the modern web, I put up a live version here: https://win9-5.com/demo. Sound on for the retro modem dial-up elevator music. The non-graybeards may never have experienced the modem's mating call in the wild.

Rapzid 2026-02-21 06:50 UTC link

It's a real shame both Job's movies skip right over his NeXT and Pixar days..

In 1983 he predicted 10-15 years until home network connectivity is "solved". 10 years later the world wide web released to the public, originally developed on his company's NeXT platform in 1989..

shevy-java 2026-02-21 07:46 UTC link

Better than chrome!

ulrischa 2026-02-21 08:45 UTC link

When watching this I'm shocked how bad the UX Was these days. The scrollbar left, the triple steped menu... What was improved sometimes is only visible when we see how it was back in the past.

sylware 2026-02-21 10:18 UTC link

That makes me think about the whatng cartel apocalypse.

People lost themselves, forgetting how important noscript/basic (x)html (aka basic HTML forms, nowdays which could be augmented with <audio> and <video>)) has been for web technical independence.

All that is very sad, and toxic.

amelius 2026-02-21 12:57 UTC link

I wish someone would write a reference implementation in a functional language.

At least that would formalize the specification.

dang 2026-02-21 19:49 UTC link

Related. Others?

WorldWideWeb – the first web browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34218591 - Jan 2023 (18 comments)

The Browser – WorldWideWeb Next Application (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26680839 - April 2021 (21 comments)

The Browser – WorldWideWeb Next Application - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25013103 - Nov 2020 (8 comments)

CERN 2019 WorldWideWeb Rebuild - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24939929 - Oct 2020 (7 comments)

CERN 2019 WorldWideWeb Rebuild - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19249373 - Feb 2019 (45 comments)

CERN 2019 WorldWideWeb Rebuild: 2019 rebuilding of the original NeXT web browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19183316 - Feb 2019 (1 comment)

jbottoms 2026-02-22 01:05 UTC link

Probably should be "Rebuilt the CERN Browser"

The Silversmith browser went into service in 1986. It worked with SCI documents under security controls. The user could only access the sections of the document permitted by heir clearance. It includeded in-line images that linked to descriptions providing access to data in a prescribed linked bounding box. The Security mechanism could be configured to resemble the security procedures of WWMCCS (Now SIPRNet)(WorldWide Military Command & Control System), Later renamed WIS (WWMCCS Information System).

A modified version providing semantic sezrches was made available to the U.S.Army Material Command in 1988. In 2007 an ACM in Boston a paper described another variant that provided searches using creative strings.