What are the origins of vertical scrolling in HTML?  Who invented
scrolling?  Any information on the history of scrolling on the
web/Internet would be very helpful.

Hello i_prefer_pi

I suspect that the idea of scrolling web pages wasn't so much invented
as something that evolved.

When Tim Berners-Lee first invented the hypertext system that became
the web, the idea of a graphical browser wasn't foremost in his mind.
Most internet access at that time was from character-terminal devices,
which could only display plain ASCII text. Because terminals came in a
variety of sizes, the amount of text that could fit on one "screen"
was dependent upon the user's system, so it wasn't possible to easily
design a screenful of information. So the idea of a virtual page with
more text than a physical screen, which could be paged up and down,
was an obvious way of ensuring that everyone could always read the
relevant information.

For example, http://www.w3.org/Summary.html is a very early guide to
the worldwide web, which at the bottom gives a way in which the web
could then be trialled by simply telnetting into a Unix shell account
at CERN in Switzerland. Telnet is an inherently text-only method of
accessing resources.

The first graphical web browser was NCSA's Mosaic (the forerunner of
Netscape and Mozilla), and it would have been a logical step to extend
the PageUp / PageDown functionality that users were used to seeing on
text-based readers into a ScrollUp / ScrollDown functionality such as
we see in modern browsers. You can read plenty more about the history
of Mosaic at http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Divisions/PublicAffairs/MosaicHistory/

And today we still have the factor that there is no single standard
size for a web page. Even if you have your screen resolution set to
800x600 or 1024x768, there is no guarantee that people will use their
browser at maximum resolution, so you can not plan a standard page
size with which to implement a "turn page" concept. Vertical scrolling
is a good solution to the problem.

For more information on the history of the web, you can look at
http://www.dejavu.org/ -- amongst other things they have examples of
early browsers which run as java applets, so you can surf the early
90s web, should you so wish!

Regards

iaint-ga

Thanks, this is perfect.  This is my first time using Google Answers
and I definitely will be using this feature much more.

Dear i_prefer_pi-ga :

It appears, oddly enough, that the first computers to feature
scrolling capabilities were never sold. I found this blurb that dates
to the something that took place in the late 70’s:

ECD Corporation 

“The ECD Corp's MicroMind was a 6502-based computer dating to around
the time of the Apple II. It had memory management (!) and an advanced
video display with downloadable fonts, up to 132 characters per line,
and smooth scrolling.
The prototypes were wire-wrapped, as were the initial (and only, alas)
models that were actually sold. Its smooth-scrolling capability,
unique among micros at the time, made it attractive to hospitals to
present the list of TV stations avilable on hospital channels. The
cost of $8K was no object.

The plan was to go to printed-circuit board, and ads were taken out in
Byte magazine offering the machine for $1500. Orders poured in, but
the PC version never appeared (the orders were all refunded). The 3
founders of ECD laid off all its employees and held on for awhile, but
ECD itself eventually went bankrupt.”
http://www.aconit.org/hbp/CCC/ccorgs.htm#ECD%20Corp.

Please let me know if this is sufficient.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

Dear tutuzdad-ga, 

Thank you so much for your very insightful comments.  That is very
helpful.  What I am looking for, though, is why the originators of the
web/Internet chose scrolling as the method to read information online
versus other ways of looking at pages online (i.e. turning pages much
like a magazine or newspaper).  Any information you can find on that
matter would be incredibly helpful.

Sincerely, 
Raquel (i_prefer_pi-ga)