1995 laid the groundwork for a truly global World Wide Web. But not every country took the same path to connecting to the internet. Some resisted, wanting to create their own version. Others had to fight for access, not wanting to be left behind. And while we made huge strides in connecting the world in those early years, we still have a long way to go. Julien Mailland recounts the rollout of France’s Minitel service—how it was years ahead of the internet, but eventually lost its lead. Steve Goldstein explains what was involved in building the infrastructure to expand the NSFNET beyond the United States. Gianluigi Negro shares how China pushed for its connection, and how different it would be compared to the typical U.S. connection. And Christian O'Flaherty covers how costs weighed heavily on Argentina’s attempts to join the growing international network. Clip of Madam Hu courtesy of Asia Internet History Project. Clip from 'A Glimpse of the Future' courtesy of Richard Seltzer. If you want to read up on some of our research on the global internet rollout, you can check out all our bonus material over at redhat.com/commandlineheroes. The page is built in the style of 1995—check it out.Follow along with the episode transcript.

The web was growing quickly in the ‘90s. But all that growth wasn’t going to lead to much if people couldn’t actually find any web sites. In 1995, an innovative new tool started crawling the web. And the search engine it fed opened the doors to the World Wide Web. Elizabeth Van Couvering describes trying to find websites before search engines, and how difficult it was becoming in the early ’90s to keep track of them all. Louis Monier talks about having to convince others how important search engines would become—and he showed them what a web crawler could do. Paul Cormier recounts taking the search engine from a research project to a commercial one. And Richard Seltzer wrote the book on search engines, helping the rest of the world see what a profoundly vital tool they would become. If you want to read up on some of our research on search, you can check out all our bonus material over at redhat.com/commandlineheroes. The page is built in the style of 1995—check it out.Follow along with the episode transcript.

We put a lot of trust into online shopping: sharing our names, addresses, and handing over money. In return, we have faith that the purchased item appears at our doorstep in a few days or weeks. That trust didn’t come easily. In 1995, we took our first steps out of the brick and mortar store to load our digital shopping cart. Robert Spector reveals how Amazon.com’s business foundations are in data—and being early to the internet. Sandeep Krishnamurthy recounts the rise of eBay. Angela Robinson describes the technology that makes secure transactions and trustworthy e-commerce possible. Kartik Shastri shares how difficult it was to store and process consumer data. And Katie Wilson explains how some big tech companies are different from previous monopolies, but are following many of the same paths.If you want to read up on some of our research on web design, you can check out all our bonus material over at redhat.com/commandlineheroes. The page is built in the style of 1995—check it out.Follow along with the episode transcript.

Looking at the internet in 1995 is like looking back at awkward grade school yearbooks—all the weirdness and flaws stand out in stark contrast to what it’s grown into since. And web design took awhile to become a career—but it got a big boost in 1995. When the Batman Forever website launched to promote the movie, it showed people what was possible on the web. And it forever changed what we’d expect from a website. Jay Hoffmann describes the quirky designs of the early web. Richard Vijgen explains how we went from a lack of conventions to a homogenized web. Jeffrey Zeldman recounts building the Batman Forever movie’s website—and sowing the seeds of professional web design. Jessica Helfand outlines the process and joys of designing a web page. And Kyle Drake shares how he founded Neocities in an attempt to recreate some of that magic of the early web.

The Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) gave everyone a foundation for building and viewing the World Wide Web. In 1995, its standardization led to dominance. Its simplicity helped it spread. And its solid common foundation helped shape the internet. Dr. Belinda Barnet explains what kind of framework was initially needed to build and navigate the Web. Jeff Veen describes the three ingredients Tim Berners-Lee combined to create HTML: the ideal language for the Web. Gavin Nicol recounts the need to standardize the quickly-growing language. And Gretchen McCulloch points out how HTML instills an inherent bias for English speakers to develop for the web.If you want to read up on some of our research on HTML, you can check out all our bonus material over at redhat.com/commandlineheroes. Follow along with the episode transcript. 

1995 was the year that ISPs became the dominant gateway to the information superhighway. But how’d we go from ARPANET all the way to that? It turns out, none of it would have happened without a team of intrepid engineers at the University of Michigan.Marc Weber tells us how a tension between academics and the military set the next evolution of the ARPANET. Douglas Van Houweling discusses the work his MERIT team did at the University of Michigan to build the national backbone of the NSFNET. Elise Gerich, MERIT’s systems manager, talks about how they made the leap from a T1 connection to a T3 to handle traffic from their growing network. And Janet Abbate emphasizes how all this set the stage for the commercialized internet that birthed the dot-com boom in 1995.If you want to read up on some of our research on the NSFNET, you can check out all our bonus material over at redhat.com/commandlineheroes. Follow along with the episode transcript.

The year is 1995. The internet starts going mainstream and the dot-com bubble begins its rapid inflation. But 10 years before all of this, a small team of systems administrators made a seemingly simple decision that would turn out to have a monumental impact on these events and would set the course of the internet for the foreseeable future. Dr. W. Joseph Campbell sets the stage for our season on the internet in 1995. Claire L. Evans explains how hard it was to find anything on the early internet. One team was charged with compiling that information in the early days of the ARPANET. Elizabeth “Jake” Feinler recounts being the internet’s sole librarian in those early days, and how she helped come up with the rules for future domain names. Paul Mockapetris describes designing the domain name system they later implemented as the internet went from a public network to a private business. And Ben Tarnoff explains the results of that increasingly privatized internet.If you want to read up on some of our research on the domain name system (DNS), you can check out all our bonus material over at redhat.com/commandlineheroes. Follow along with the episode transcript.

The internet’s been around for awhile now. And it’s safe to say that it’s changed much of our daily lives. But not so long ago, there were few people who realized how transformative the internet would become. Season 7 of Command Line Heroes looks back at those few who saw the internet’s early potential and forever shaped it during its most formative year: 1995. From the origins of e-commerce, to web design, to HTML, to the infrastructure holding it all together around the world, this season highlights the heroes who turned the nascent internet into the vital global network we know today. The first episode drops March 23, 2021. Subscribe today and sign up for the newsletter to get the latest updates. 

If you think hard work is enough to guarantee success, you haven’t been listening. All season long, we’ve profiled Black inventors who haven’t quite been given their due. Arlan Hamilton is helping reverse that trend by leveling the playing field—and changing the venture capital game.Arlan Hamilton’s story mirrors many we’ve covered this season—overcoming adversity to find success. But she’s also helping redefine what success can look like and, in the process, is helping change the broader tech industry. Janice Omadeke lays out how diversifying the VC community in turn leads to greater diversity among founders receiving funding. Ramona Ortega explains how traditional VC priorities often pass over startups that can be successful. And Scott Myers-Lipton discusses inequality in Silicon Valley (and beyond) and how he’s working to bring about lasting change.If you want to read up on more of our research on Arlan Hamilton, you can check out all our bonus material over at redhat.com/commandlineheroes. Follow along with the episode transcript.If you want to hear more from Arlan, check out her podcast: "Your First Million"." It's about how different people became portfolio companies at Backstage Capital.

Is the moon made of cheese? Of course not. But can a person walk on the surface? Not too long ago, we couldn’t answer that question. But with the help of Gladys Perkins, we soon figured out that we could send a team to the moon and have them safely land on its surface. There was a time when the United States was behind the Soviets in the space race. Everyone had their sights set on the moon. Andrew Chaikin describes NASA’s disastrous Ranger missions. Erik Conway explains how complicated the trajectory calculations were—and to top it all off, why they often couldn’t be done in advance. To succeed, NASA’s new Surveyor program would need the capability to adjust trajectory mid-flight. Gladys Perkins made those calculations possible. But her part in this story hasn’t been well documented. Our editor Kim Huang recounts how difficult it was to get details of her story. And Vahe Peroomian explains how important it is to get these histories told to inspire the next generation to take on moonshot projects.Finding information about Gladys Perkins was tough. We found some breadcrumbs to her story on this Hughes Aircraft blog.If you want to read up on some of our research on Gladys Perkins, you can check out all our bonus material over at redhat.com/commandlineheroes. Follow along with the episode transcript.