<P> Berners - Lee found an enthusiastic supporter in Robert Cailliau . Berners - Lee and Cailliau pitched Berners - Lee's ideas to the European Conference on Hypertext Technology in September 1990, but found no vendors who could appreciate his vision of marrying hypertext with the Internet . </P> <P> By Christmas 1990, Berners - Lee had built all the tools necessary for a working Web: the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) 0.9, the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the first Web browser (named WorldWideWeb, which was also a Web editor), the first HTTP server software (later known as CERN httpd), the first web server (http://info.cern.ch), and the first Web pages that described the project itself . The browser could access Usenet newsgroups and FTP files as well . However, it could run only on the NeXT; Nicola Pellow therefore created a simple text browser, called the Line Mode Browser, that could run on almost any computer . To encourage use within CERN, Bernd Pollermann put the CERN telephone directory on the web--previously users had to log onto the mainframe in order to look up phone numbers . </P> <P> While inventing and working on setting up the Web, Berners - Lee spent most of his working hours in Building 31 (second floor) at CERN (46 ° 13 ′ 57" N 6 ° 02 ′ 42" E ﻿ / ﻿ 46.2325 ° N 6.0450 ° E ﻿ / 46.2325; 6.0450 ﻿ (CERN Building 31, Birthplace of the World Wide Web)), but also at his two homes, one in France, one in Switzerland . In January 1991 the first Web servers outside CERN itself were switched on . </P> <P> The first web page may be lost, but Paul Jones of UNC - Chapel Hill in North Carolina revealed in May 2013 that he has a copy of a page sent to him in 1991 by Berners - Lee which is the oldest known web page . Jones stored the plain - text page, with hyperlinks, on a floppy disk and on his NeXT computer . CERN put the oldest known web page back online in 2014, complete with hyperlinks that helped users get started and helped them navigate what was then a very small web . </P>

When was the world wide web made public