[marbu]

Yes and no.

Yes, the first web browser/editor was a GUI application from the start, so was the original Tim's idea. But the first browser/editor was working on NeXT machines only, which were very expensive and rare. Only few people actually had the opportunity to experience the web this way and most people seen this software in action as a demonstration only.

The first browser most people used when introduced to the web was a "dumb" command line client https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Mode_Browser. It was as simple as possible, so that it could be compiled on any platform and used over telnet, it wasn't even using curses library.

So the early web users were experiencing the web via text browsers only until the rise of gui browsers later.

See https://blog.marbu.eu/posts/2023-04-29-the-first-web-browser...

[mattl]

Also most people could telnet to a host that already had the line mode browser installed. I believe that’s how a lot of non-NeXT users at CERN would be using it.