Tim Berners-Lee appears with NeXT computer at Olympics

About an hour into the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics on Friday, after a modern tribute to British love stories, a bit of scenery was hoist away, revealing the man behind the curtain of our Web-centered lives, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Honored as the inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim wrote the world’s first web browser and web server software, and established the HyperText Transport Protocol specification (the HTTP at the beginning of all web addresses).

Appearing with Sir Tim was a NeXT Cube, like the one that powered the world’s first web server in 1989. Although never a commercial success, NeXT computer systems were key to the swift development of the early web. The first web browser, WorldWideWeb, was also a WYSIWYG editor for creating web pages. It was “made in the space of a few months,” recalls Sir Tim’s associate Robert Cailliau, “thanks to the qualities of the NeXTStep software development system.” NeXT, a company founded by Steve Jobs during his time away from Apple, was eventually sold back to Apple and later versions of NeXTStep, called OpenStep, power Apple’s OS X.

With the press of a button, Sir Tim appeared to send a message, displayed in the stadium across 70,000 LED panels, and sent via Twitter:

Sir Tim concluded his appearance by waving to the crowd and giving the audience a standing ovation. We give him a standing ovation too, and will now retire to the museum to fire up a copy of WorldWideWeb on our very own NeXTstation.

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