The World Wide Web (www often referred to as The Web), invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee way back in 1989 was created as a “universal linked information system” which shared documents and information through web servers that used Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML on its own can’t do much, it needs a web server that accepts requests from remote machines, and serves the HTML content to the user via a web browser. All of which we take for granted now, but at the time, web servers and HTML were a big deal.
The first web server was a desktop computer. Specifically an NeXTcube computer, at CERN — taken from the French “Conseil européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire” and translated into English it is European Organization for Nuclear Research — which is based in Meyrin, on the France-Switzerland border. A note stuck to the computer “This machine is a server do not power down”, instructed that the computer must not be switched off, otherwise the first web server would go offline.
