Mosaic

adj 1: of or relating to Moses or the laws and writings attributed

to him; "Mosaic Law" [syn: {Mosaic}]

2: decorated with small pieces of colored glass or stone fitted

together; "a mosaic floor"; "a tessellated pavement" [syn:

{tessellated}]

n 1: design made of small pieces of colored stone or glass

2: viral disease in solanaceous plants (tomatoes; potatoes;

tobacco) resulting in mottling and often shriveling of the

leaves

3: a freeware browser [syn: {Mosaic}]

4: a pattern resembling a mosaic

5: light-sensitive surface on a television camera tube

6: assembly of aerial photographs forming a composite picture

Mosaic

{NCSA}'s {browser} ({client}) for the

{World-Wide Web}.

Mosaic has been described as "the killer application of the

1990s" because it was the first program to provide a slick

{multimedia} {graphical user interface} to the {Internet}'s

burgeoning wealth of distributed information services

(formerly mostly limited to {FTP} and {Gopher}) at a time when

access to the {Internet} was expanding rapidly outside its

previous domain of academia and large industrial research

institutions.

NCSA Mosaic was originally designed and programmed for the {X

Window System} by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina at NCSA.

Version 1.0 was released in April 1993, followed by two

maintenance releases during summer 1993. Version 2.0 was

released in December 1993, along with version 1.0 releases for

both the {Apple Macintosh} and {Microsoft Windows}. An

{Acorn Archimedes} port is underway (May 1994).

Marc Andreessen, who created the NCSA Mosaic research

prototype as an undergraduate student at the {University of

Illinois} left to start {Mosaic Communications Corporation}

along with five other former students and staff of the

university who were instrumental in NCSA Mosaic's design and

development.

{(http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/help-about.html)}

{(ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/)}.

E-mail: (X version),

(Macintosh),

(Windows version), (general help).

(1995-04-06)