Carter, if you understand DNS (Domain Name Service), the first modern domain name was pretty much invented around 1987 - it pretty much started as '.'
In reality the basis for domain names started with the old ARPA net naming system.
How would we communicate without WWW? We would probably use other services like Gopher, FTP, SMTP, etc. Would so many people be on the Internet without the WWW (http) service? Almost certainly not. WWW established the platform to bring together an environment to integrate words, pictures and other 'objects'... and that sparked the imagination of a generation.
The first 'PC' computer I owned was an 8086 based HP150 back in 1984. However, the first computer I ever touched was an HP2000 (via teletype back in the mid 1970s). I've seen quite a bit over the years.
I remember being part of the team that implemented the very first local area networks for the Cities of Palo Alto and Sunnyvale as the System Engineer on the project. We started with a "thick ethernet" backbone at a whopping 10Mb / second and used something called "StarLan" which was an early TCP/IP over twisted pair which ran at a whole 1Mb/sec - quite a bit less than today's gibabit lans.
There is no question of the value which Tim Berners-Lee brought to the Internet with HTTP and HTML, but there are also so many other unsung heros you should also remember. Names like the late Jon Postel, Vinton Cerf, Paul Mockapetris and others, many of whom are still contributing to the Internet. Even earlier, those who contributed to the ideas and groundwork to form what we call 'packets' today. The platform upon which we do business is rich with history.
The business is still very much in its infacy but continues to mature and grow as today's generation of thinkers come up with new ideas and applications to serve the rest of us. Even 20 years after WWW, it is still a very opportunity rich environment where one can still do very well.
Here's to the next 20.
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