Input needed, spread around!

[strredwolf]

I want some debate, so feel free to post links to this.

I'm looking for the top eight implemented ideas that started the media-saturated Internet as we know today.  No, not the Internet itself.  The applications that jump-started things.

Why?  I'm doing a bit of furry artwork, sort of my view of "the god in the machine" inspired by momentrabbit's ponderings, a webcomic called Wigu, and kinkyturtle's own work.  I already have the representation of IPv4 and IPv6.  The current browsers will also have their own representation, but I'm looking for history.

Here's my own musings:

1. NCSA Mosaic, the first web browser that made an impact and begat Netscape and IE.
2. RealPlayer, the first streamable audio/video codecs.
3. WinAmp and Shoutcast, the first to bring streaming MP3 stations to the people
4. Linux, which made making a reliable server cheap.
5. Apache, the first good web server.
6. Perl, which made the web interactive (if by forms).
7. Javascript, which lightened the load.
8. Jolt Cola.  Yeah, a soft drink, but you needed the caffeine for those late code sessions.
   

Comments

Seminal Ideas

[chalain.livejournal.com]

Al Gore jokes aside...

1. DARPANet's mesh topography. Originally meant to allow the President to nuke the godless commies even if half the DARPANet was destroyed, this concept now exists in the modern mantra of "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

2. DARPANet's electronic mail program, in which people could send memos to each other in just seconds. This was the birth of people sitting down at a computer with their morning coffee to see what the computer had to offer today.

3. Usenet, which spawned two glorious children simultaneously: internet porn and internet flamewars. Perhaps it was the frustration of waiting 45 minutes to see a heavily pixelated nipple that made us so willing to call each other Nazis over whether you put the { at the end of a line (like a civilized human being) or on a newline by itself (like the Nazis did).

4. The Hayes 2400-baud modem, which as advertised in a full-color spread at the back of every issue of Compute! magazine, would let you connect to CompuServe, GEnie, or even Delphi Internet.

5. Napster, which alerted publishers to the sizable market for legitimate music by demonstrating the colossal demand for stolen music.

6. Flash, and then ShockWave, which attempted to pour rich content on your desktop even though you were drinking the internet through a piddly little 14.4 modem.

7. The 56k modems, which drove the phone lines at higher voltages than the phone lines were rated for, and caused a lot of telecoms to get in trouble with regulatory boards. No really, this was big news in rural America as recently as the late 90's. Telecoms claimed a service rating based on number of pairs of copper multiplied the utilization ratio of the typical consumer. Before ubiquitization of modems, the average consumer used their phone for 4 minutes a day. After the 56k modem, it rose to close to an hour a day per consumer because a rising percentage of people were spending 12-24 hours a day "on the phone" using dialup. Qwest got fined $10,000 a day in Utah in 1996 because the city of Magna only had like 256 pairs of copper serving 10,000 people.

8. MMX Technology. Wait, you can decode sound and video in hardware? MMX died almost as soon as it was born, not because people didn't use it but because everyone else realized that it was such critical technology. Within a year you couldn't find a CPU or sound card without media-friendly hardware.

9. NVidia GeForce technology. I happened to be working at a video game company when these hit in 1999. I remember being completely overawed to discover that our rendering budget of 2,000 triangles per frame had just been raised to ten million.

[kipakuta.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the compact disc. A near universal medium for Audio, video, and gaming purposes. Lead to the retirment of cartridges, cassette tapes, floppy discs, and vhs

[kesarra.livejournal.com]

Cartridges are still used in servers, that are well past their prime, as daily/weekly backups.