Internet Explorer from version 1.0 to 9.0
Since Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 was released Andy—you know! Andy!—wondered what it would be like to install every version of Microsoft’s Web browser starting at IE 1.0 under Windows 95 and working all the way up through IE 6.0 on Windows XP to IE 9.0 which is only available for Windows Vista or 7 and compare them. His video is fascinating.
Acid tests
In the video he mentions Acid1, Acid2 and Acid3 (these links take you to Wikipedia) which are test pages that are used by browser manufacturers to check for problems in the way that they display Web pages.
- Acid1 tests how a browser uses the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) 1.0 specification.
- Acid2 tests CSS 2.1 styling, HTML, PNG images, and data URIs (a way to include data within pages as though they were external resources).
- Acid3 tests the Document Object Model (that is the structure of the page) and how the browser handles the JavaScript scripting language which is often used to add interactivity to a Web page.
You can check how well your browser does by clicking on the links above, which take you to the tests themselves.
The browser that I’m using to write this in (Google Chrome 11 beta) passes all three tests, even scoing 100/100 in Acid3. Internet Explorer 9.0 passes tests 1 and 2 and scores an admirable 95/100 in Acid 3; Firefox 4.0 scores 97/100.
But I digress…
Internet Explorer 3.0… without the internet
My first introduction to Internet Explorer was IE 3.0 under Windows 3.11 for Workgroups when I was learning HTML back in 1997. I wasn’t even connected to the World Wide Web, which is fine because the readme file suggested that the internet was just one option:
This product enables you to browse and view HTML documents on the network, in addition to documents on the World Wide Web or Internet. Other services, such as Gopher and FTP, and NNTP news support, are also available.
I still have the installer for Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 for Microsoft Windows 3.1 from November 1996).
Here are the system requirements:
- A personal computer, 386 processor or higher
- Microsoft Windows 3.1 or 3.11 or Microsoft Windows for Workgroups 3.1 or 3.11
- At least 4 megabytes (MB) of memory
- A VGA monitor or better
- A mouse
- A modem with a speed of at least 9600 or a LAN connection
Personal computers and the Web have come a long way since then.