townx

I was browsing my old email today (actually looking for an address to send a Christmas card to) when I came across an email to a friend, dated 17th November 1994, explaining how I'd been setting up my first home page. There are a few interesting points to note: my first exposure to the web was via lynx; I still called it "the world wide web"; I had to explain hyperlinks to my friend; my view that the web/internet would be commercially important one day turned out to be right (it was by no means self-evident at the time); and I ended up doing pretty much what I said I probably would, even though I'd only been using the internet for about two months when I made the prediction. Anyway, here's the quotation:

I'm setting up my home page on the world wide web. If you want to have a look, try opening a package like netscape, xmosaic, mosaic or lynx, Once you get in, do one of the following:

* Type 'g' if in lynx

* Click on 'Open' if in netscape or xmosaic or mosaic

When you get the little box, or the prompt at the bottom of lynx changes to a 'URL to open', then type in

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~ezs/home.html

That should connect you to my home page, which has got exciting things to go to. If you point at the underlined words and click on them with
the left mouse button, you'll be transported to exciting locations across the world. I might even set up a lit crit type page within it, and stick some interesting addresses in it, to save you the hassle of having to look for them yourself. I spend at least an hour a day 'surfing' - I reckon it'll be an important skill in the future, as businesses will realise that the web and the net are full of pertinent business information, and will need people like me to find it, or write programs to find it.