Friday June 12, 8:12 pm Eastern Time
New book describes early heroes of the Internet
By Andrea Orr
PALO ALTO, Calif., June 12 (Reuters) - No one can know how the world might be a different place today if a car full of
college students cruising around Boston in 1993 had not swerved at the last second to avoid a crash with an oncoming truck.
For those who believe in the power of the Internet to change history, the crash would have have had an enormous impact.
Riding in the car was Marc Andreessen, who would later found Netscape Communications Corp., and all of his cohorts in a
revolutionary project to bring the Internet to the masses.
''They all joked about it later,'' a new book about Netscape recounts. ''... how they had been a split second away from death,
which definitely would have changed history.''
Founders of powerful high-tech companies are not always the most humble bunch, and can be prone to overstating their own
importance. But ''Speeding the Net'' makes the claim by Andreessen and company seem almost plausible.
The book goes back to the World Wide Web's modest beginnings, when it was such a small group of people who were
seriously working on a browser, they probably all could have fit into a single car.
WORKING FOR FUN AND PIZZA MONEY
Long before the high-profile ''browser wars'' with Microsoft Corp., before Netscape made a stunning debut on Wall Street,
there was just a group of college students working for kicks and pizza money in a basement lab at the University of Illinois.
Sure, some others were working on browsers of their own. But those others were relying on arcane software, and had no
notion of anyone other than a PhD student in particle physics ever going online.
''Speeding the Net'' portrays Andreessen and some fellow students as visionaries who turned the Internet into a medium for the
average Joe, complete with pictures, graphics and even that little hand-shaped cursor that guided the dimwitted on how to use a
mouse.
''When you look at the accelerated pace of how the Internet went from an obscure dusty corner of research to being an
accessible new medium, it's wild,'' says Michelle Slatalla, a New York Times columnist who co-authored ''Speeding the Net,''
with her journalist husband, Joshua Quittner.
''Speeding the Net'' elevates to near-idol status the early players in the World Wide Web. It describes Andreessen as a
programmer who wrote code ''with the same simple elegance that Hemingway had brought to prose.''
"WIZARDS WORKSHOP" STARTED BROWSER RACE
Responding to those who argue the Internet was an idea whose time had come in the mid-1990s, Quittner says, ''I always
have a hard time with the 'right place at the right time' argument.''
''In retrospect, it seems inevitable and obvious, but there were dozens of people at the right place at the right time and it didn't
seem obvious to them. Bill Gates is one of the smartest guys on the planet, and he rejected it out of hand.''
While Microsoft still had its sights set on less ambitious technologies, the group from the University of Illinois was charging
forward with its Internet project.
Andreessen and his team cobbled together an Internet browser that was crude and riddled with bugs but still far more
advanced than anything in existence.
It was enough to make the group minor celebrities in the high-tech world. They were invited to a ''Wizards Workshop'' in
Boston, where they showed off their work, and later, driving back from a record store, had the close brush with the truck.
As things turned out, the trip was fateful for another reason. It accelerated interest in the Internet and set off a race to bring a
browser to market.
Silicon Valley veteran James Clark recruited Andreessen and other students, along with Jim Barksdale -- the charismatic
manager who played key roles in the ascent of Federal Express and AT&T Wireless -- to head the company. Their mission:
create a commercial browser by the end of 1994.
WRITING PROGRAMS THAT ARE "DEEP AND BEAUTIFUL"
Some of the stories in ''Speeding the Net'' have already become a part of technology folklare: several programmers at
Netscape slept in makeshift beds underneath their desks, and the chubby, pizza-inhaling Andreessen pledged to wear spandex,
put on roller blades and eat tofu if the team made its goal.
But Quittner and Slatalla also convey a deep respect for the people who write code for a living, and a conviction that the
programmers are the true heroes in a story often overshadowed by the names of the large corporations involved.
''I don't think people understand what they do at all,'' says Quittner, who writes the technology column for Time magazine and
runs an online news operation for Time.
''I was just in Germany looking at the cathedrals. These people are building cathedrals out of code, with programs that are
hundreds and thousands of lines deep, and beautiful.''
With the recent reversal of fortunes at Netscape, Quittner and Slatalla had to adopt a marathon work schedule of their own to
cram in all the latest developments in the browser business and still make their publication date.
The end of the book covers the assault from the Microsoft browser, the ensuing ''browser wars'' and the controversy that led
to state and federal antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft.
The story of Netscape goes from one of astounding achievements to one about a scramble to survive. But the authors never
lose their own awe for the company.
''I don't think bad decisions were made,'' Slatalla said. ''They were hit broadside by a freight train. The amazing thing is that
they walked away from it at all.'' |
