Computers in Communication

COMPUTERS IN COMMUNICATION the WWW originated at CERN — the European Centre for Nuclear Research — in 1989, as a way of allowing physics researchers based in different countries to exchange information. The first prototype implementation appeared at CERN in 1990, and the first example of a friendly user interface appeared in 1993. Since then, interest in, and use of, theWWWhas grown explosively. The influence of the WWWis so great that, inmany people’sminds, theWWWis The Internet. In fact, the WWW is just one of many applications supported by the basic inter-network message transfer service of the Internet. The WWW is a mechanism for allowing access to documents stored on computers around the world. A major attraction for users is that it can be used without needing to know any details of how computer communications work. Just as user-friendly applications such as spreadsheets and word processors liberate people from having to know how computers work, so theWWW liberates people from having to know how communications work. In particular, the availability of colour WIMP (Window, Icon, Menu and Pointer) interfaces for using the WWW assists in this process. Of course, what is experienced by the end user may be affected by the implementation, that is, by the way in which computers or their communications work.