CHM Blog
The CHM blog showcases ideas and insights from our vibrant community in Silicon Valley and around the world. We take you behind the scenes of our programming, collections, and exhibits. Connecting the past to the present and into the future, we decode technology for everyone.
Internet History Program
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From the Collection, Internet History Program
The Bourne Collection: Online Search Is Older than You Think!
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Charlie Bourne was an expert in computerized search for 40 years before Google. CHM has recently finished cataloging his unique collection of materials documenting the history of online search and information systems from the 1950s onward, supported by a generous grant from the National Archives.
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Curatorial Insights, Internet History Program
Where to Next?
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
It's a Tuesday morning in 2037. You hurriedly brush your teeth and dress to meet the self-driving car arriving downstairs. As it pulls away from the curb, what world awaits?
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Internet History Program
The First 50 Years of Living Online: ARPANET and Internet
Friday, October 25, 2019
On the evening of October 29, 1969, two young programmers sat at computer terminals 350 miles apart: Charley Kline at UCLA and Bill Duvall at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in Northern California.
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Curatorial Insights, Internet History Program
“Woodstock of the Web” at 25
Friday, May 24, 2019
2019 is a year of many web and networking anniversaries, or “netiversaries” to continue using an awful word. This year marks the 50th anniversary of general purpose computer networks. That first connection was over the ARPANET, between Douglas Engelbart’s laboratory at SRI and another node at UCLA. Such networks were b
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Curatorial Insights, Internet History Program
Happy 30th to the World Wide Web!
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Thirty years ago this month, physicist turned programmer Tim Berners-Lee first proposed what became the World Wide Web. A few months later he resubmitted the proposal with his colleague Robert Cailliau. Today the web is living up to its ambitious name, serving over four billion people with more to come.
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Remarkable People, Internet History Program
Net@50: Did Engelbart’s “Mother of All Demos” Launch the Connected World?
Sunday, December 9, 2018
His goal was building systems to augment human intelligence. His group prototyped much of modern computing (and invented the mouse) along the way.
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Curatorial Insights, Internet History Program
Born in a Van: Happy 40th Birthday to the Internet!
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Over the shortening fall days of 1977, an unmarked silver step van filled with futuristic equipment, shaggy-haired engineers, and sometimes fully uniformed generals quietly cruised the streets of the San Francisco Peninsula. Only an oddly shaped antenna gave a hint of its purpose.
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Remarkable People, Internet History Program
2017 CHM Fellow Lawrence G. Roberts
Thursday, April 27, 2017
2017 CHM Fellow Larry Roberts (1937–2018) is honored for his seminal contributions to the evolution of our connected world. Following his early work in computer graphics and networking he was chief architect of the ARPANET, the US Department of Defense network that was a key building block of the later Internet. He wa
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Curatorial Insights, Internet History Program
A Tale of Deleted Cities
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
In the very, very, beginning, the World Wide Web was meant to be a two-way medium. You could post and edit your own pages as easily as you could browse those created by others. But the browsers that made the web popular left out editing features.
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Curatorial Insights, Internet History Program
Happy 25th Birthday to the Public Web!
Friday, August 5, 2016
This month marks 25 years since the Web’s public announcement in several online forums and the release of the WWW code library, libWWW. The library was a kind of “roll your own” tool kit that gave volunteer programmers the pieces they needed to write their own Web browsers and servers. Their efforts—over half a dozen