JamesCobban_net
New Coder
I put up my first website in 1983. It used the IBM internal page layout language ISPF to present formatted information on the services provided by our IBM mainframe. Although the primary target was the IBM 3270 video terminal, it also supported teletypewriter and internet access. Note that is even before the introduction of the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) 1986, although I had been using its primary influence IBM GML for several years. Since there were no devices in 1983 that could represent anything other than mono-spaced text, I used ISPF which supported defining, for example the colour and brightness of text and where it appeared in an 80 column display, and also supported links between pages, and input fields. I was a frequent participant in discussions on Usenet in the 1980s. You can see those discussions thanks to Henry Spencer of the University of Toronto Zoology department, who saved all of the oldest discussions on reels of tape. Henry Spencer was the guru of Usenet back in those days, and the inventor of PERL regular expressions. A disembodied character based on Henry Spencer appears in the SF Novel "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge.
My first WWW web site was in 1992 to support internet access to my family tree. It was delivered through the original NCSA httpd. It is still up and running with over three decades of enhancements at Families of South-Western Ontario.
My first WWW web site was in 1992 to support internet access to my family tree. It was delivered through the original NCSA httpd. It is still up and running with over three decades of enhancements at Families of South-Western Ontario.
