"A Web of Babel"
  05/01/2000

My first gaze into cyberspace nearly two decades ago was through a character based VT100 terminal emulator. The experience of using a terminal emulator from inside the Mac's graphic interface felt like a giant step backward, like using a LaserWriter to print memos set in Courier type. But with data rates of 300 bits per second, pushing graphics down the phone line would have been as frustrating as sucking a milkshake through a cocktail straw. Yet early cyberspace surfers had one big advantage: a standard terminal program could access nearly any service provider on any network.

As modem speeds pushed up through 2400 bits per second, smart client applications appeared. Like terminal emulators on steroids, their first purpose was to minimize connect time, which in those days was more than a dollar for three minutes. As client applications evolved, graphics proliferated while the original character-based interface disappeared from the desktop. 

But smart client applications brought some unwanted baggage: proprietary interfaces. Like the old railroad barons with custom-sized tracks, the early service providers had fashioned their networks so that only their own customers could use them. America Online even went as far as forbidding users from looking at the raw data flowing between their computer and AOL's host. By the early 90's, graphic-rich, integrated, proprietary smart client applications ruled the online world, and a cyber-surfer needed unique software for each area he or she visited.

Then came the Web. The original Web browsers evoked the spirit of character-based interfaces. Early Web browsers were neither as polished nor as fast as programs like CompuServe Information Manager or AOL's ubiquitous client, nor did they reduce connect time, which was still charged by the minute. On a usability scale, and feature for feature, Web browsers were a step backward, except that they were based on a standard that made which computer you used irrelevant. In displacing the proprietary interfaces with an open standard -- TCP/IP and HTML -- Web browsers pointed out a path toward the future.

In a few short years, the Web has nearly displaced every consumer oriented online technology that preceded it. Despite standards that have been folded, spindled, and mutilated by the browser wars, most browsers are compatible with every Web site. Modern Web browsers and are mature, stable products that do what they are designed to do quite well. The Web will continue to evolve, but I do not expect much innovation in browser technology except to bolt-on more features. And those "features" are where things get a little scary for Mac users. As Web sites proliferate, it is becoming more common for sites to require a specific feature, tied to a specific browser and operating system.

Mac users have had the good fortune thus far to usually be treated as equal clients on the Web, and as such have benefited from the Web's growth along with everyone else. But the trend toward interactive sites with endless bells and whistles threatens to once again make the Macintosh a second class citizen.

  - by Robert DeLaurentis