NCSA Mosaic: a global hypermedia system

Abstract

PurposeThis paper seeks to report on an Internet‐based system for hypermedia information discovery and retrieval and wide‐area distributed asynchronous collaboration designed and built at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).Design/methodology/approachThe NCSA is developing Mosaic clients – user‐friendly information browsers – for the three most popular desktop computing environments of the mid‐1990s: the Unix‐based X Window System, the Apple Macintosh, and Microsoft Windows 3.1. This paper primarily discusses the X client, as it has the most advanced functionality of the three at this time.FindingsThe system, called NCSA Mosaic, integrates cleanly into existing Internet protocols, formats, data sources, and environments, and provides powerful new capabilities for using and sharing information across the Internet.Originality/valueNCSA is making the complete Mosaic system freely available and distributable for all academic and research organizations and purposes.