Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Gore is also credited with coining the term “information superhighway.” Gore
was computer literate enough to publish an article in a special issue of
Scientific
American
in September 1991 titled “Communications, Computers, and Net-
works.”
Scientific American
was and remains a prestigious scientific journal.
The Mosaic web browser first appeared in 1993. This was not the first web
browser, but for several years, it was the most popular. Mosaic was developed at
the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of
Illinois campus in Urbana-Champaign.
Mosaic supported several older internet protocols, had a pleasant interface and
good cosmetics, and ran on IBM personal computers. Basically, it made the web
fairly easy to use by consumers instead of a network used by technical specialists.
But there would soon be many more browsers.
Some of the Mosaic developers also worked on the Netscape browser, which
was another popular tool for web surfing.
The phrase “surfing the web” was created in 1992 by a librarian named Jean
Armour Polly from Liverpool, New York. She used the phrase in an article she
wrote called “Surfing the Internet.”
Computers and software have made substantial changes to our everyday work-
ing vocabulary. Hundreds of new terms or new definitions for older terms have
been due to the influence of computers and software. A few samples include ap-
plication, big data, binding, browser, botnet, bug, computer (the device), cyber-
crime, database, deadlock, function point, google (as a verb), hypertext, hypervi-
sor, interface, internet, malware, object, object-oriented, patch, program, program-
mer, relational database, software, URL, virtual, virus, workstation, and worm.
A special technical vocabulary associated with a scientific or technical field is
called an
argot
. The software engineering argot is one of the largest to date and is
still growing rapidly. New terms are being created probably on a weekly basis.
Suffice it to say that there was much competition and eventually litigation in the
important field of web browsing, including tough competition between Netscape
and Windows Explorer. In the fullness of time, a number of powerful browsers
were established, including Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Windows
Explorer.
The “browser wars” ran throughout this decade and were not finally resolved
until the results of an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft were implemented in the
next decade. On May 18, 1998, the Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit
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