| 1969 |
United States Defense Department creates ARPANET, which evolved into the internet. |
| 1978 |
First MUD (multi-user dungeon) developed; it can still be played at www.british-legends.com |
| 1980 |
Tim Berners-Lee develops Enquire, a hypertext system that was an
early precursor of HTML and the Web |
| 1982 |
William Gibson publishes his short story Burning Chrome in Omni
magazine, in which he invents the word cyberspace. |
| 1983 |
ARPANET is split into a public ARPANET (today's internet) and a classified
MILNET. |
| 1984 |
Islands of Kesmai, the first commercial MMORPG, was launched on Compuserve.
|
| 1984 |
William Gibson publishes Neuromancer.
|
| 1985 |
LucasFilm launches Habitat for Commodore 64. Habitat is the first
MMORPG (massively multi-player online role-playing game) with a graphical user
interface. |
| 1988 |
Habitat launched for public use as Club Caribe, on the online
service QuantumLink (later became AOL) |
| 1988 |
LucasFilm licenses Habitat to Fujitsu for use in Japan |
| 1990 |
Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau communicate between two computers using
the first web server. |
| 1990 |
Fujitsu implements Fujitsu Habitat on its FM-Towns personal computer |
| 1991 |
Tim Berners-Lee makes his web server available for download via telnet |
| 1992 |
Mosaic, the first web browser in widespread use, is developed. |
| 1992 |
Ultima Underworld is the first 3D game. It was based on the Ultima
RPG, that first appeared around 1980. |
| 1992 |
Neal Stephenson's novel Snow
Crash was published, creating a new vision of virtual worlds. |
| 1993 |
The Web goes public - Web technology and program code are placed in the public
domain. |
| 1993 |
Cybertown
- first prototype |
| 1994 |
Fujitsu licenses and modifies Habitat for distribution as WorldsAway.
It later became Vzones's Dreamscape;
the other two Vzones worlds are newHorizone and Second Kingdom. |
| 1995 |
Cybertown launched |
| 2002 |
The Sims Online launched |
| Jun 2003 |
Second Life launched |
| Oct 2003 |
There launched |
| 2004 |
World of Warcraft
launched |
| 2007 |
Multiverse - Build your
own virtual world! |
| |
Articles:
|
| 1990 |
Early MUD
History, by Richard Bartle |
| 1990 |
The Lessons
of Lucasfilm's Habitat |
| 1997 |
Review
of Virtual Communities Commentary by John Tang |
| 1998 |
The Virtual Community
Online edition of Howard Rheingold's book |
| 1999 |
Everquest
launched |
| 2001 |
Remember Q-Link
Info about the Commodore 64 service that hosted Habitat |
| 2002 |
The Sims Online
launched, based on the life simulation game The
Sims. |
| 2002 |
Parallels
in MUD and IRC History (first draft), by Michael Lawry |
| 2004 |
Virtual
Reality on the Web: From Legacy worlds to future Speech-Interactive |
| 2006 |
PacificRim
Exchange: History of Virtual Worlds |
| 2006 |
Playing
Catch Up: Habitat's Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer |
| |
Habitat Chronicles
- website of Randy Farmer
and Chip Morningstar,
developers of Habitat |
| |
From
Habitat to Global Cyberspace |
| |
Internet/Intranet
Timeline |
| |
Living Internet
- History of the Internet |
| |
Online
World Timeline - Ralph Koster's wealth of historical details |
| |
PlayOn, Exploring
the Social Dimensions of Virtual Worlds |
| |
Summary
MUD History, by Richard Bartle |
| |
Virtual Worlds Timeline
project |
|
Virtual
world timeline - Was there Life before Second Life? |
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