Mosaic
{NCSA}'s {browser} ({client}) for the
{World-Wide Web}.
Mosaic has been described as "the killer application of the
1990s" because it was the first program to provide a slick
{multimedia} {graphical user interface} to the {Internet}'s
burgeoning wealth of distributed information services
(formerly mostly limited to {FTP} and {Gopher}) at a time when
access to the {Internet} was expanding rapidly outside its
previous domain of academia and large industrial research
institutions.
NCSA Mosaic was originally designed and programmed for the {X
Window System} by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina at NCSA.
Version 1.0 was released in April 1993, followed by two
maintenance releases during summer 1993. Version 2.0 was
released in December 1993, along with version 1.0 releases for
both the {Apple Macintosh} and {Microsoft Windows}. An
{Acorn Archimedes} port is underway (May 1994).
Marc Andreessen, who created the NCSA Mosaic research
prototype as an undergraduate student at the {University of
Illinois} left to start {Mosaic Communications Corporation}
along with five other former students and staff of the
university who were instrumental in NCSA Mosaic's design and
development.
{(http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/help-about.html)}
{(ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/)}.
E-mail: (X version),
(Macintosh),
(Windows version), (general help).
(1995-04-06)