Brin: View into two decades of history

"The WWW project merges the techniques of information retrieval and hypertext to make an easy but powerful global information system," he wrote in August 1991.

"The project started with the philosophy that much academic information should be freely available to anyone.

"It aims to allow information sharing within internationally dispersed teams, and the dissemination of information by support groups."

Thousands of topics

Before the internet and e-mail became ubiquitous, online communication involved posting text messages on electronic bulletin boards where others could read and reply to them.

The disease sounds very frightening. I had heard about it about two weeks ago. Seems like the public should be more aware of it

Early Usenet posting on Aids

Usenet began in 1979 as a collection of these bulletin boards, now called newsgroups.

Over the years, the number of such newsgroups has grown to the thousands, hosted all over the world and covering every conceivable topic.

Through the Google archive, you can find the first mention of Microsoft in May 1981, the first mention of a compact disc and the first ever public discussion on Aids in December 1982.

"The disease sounds very frightening," reads one message. "I had heard about it about two weeks ago. Seems like the public should be more aware of it. Anybody have any info on it?"