Gopher Proxy
gopherpedia.com:70 gopherpedia.com:70/0//Trojan_Room_coffee_pot
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
======================================================================
= Trojan_Room_coffee_pot =
======================================================================
Introduction
======================================================================
The Trojan Room coffee pot was a coffee machine located in the
Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, England. It was
the subject of the world's first webcam, created by Quentin
Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky in 1991.
To save people working in the building the disappointment of finding
the coffee machine empty after making the trip to the room, a camera
was set up providing a live picture of the coffee pot to all desktop
computers on the office network. After the camera was connected to the
Internet a few years later, the coffee pot gained international renown
as a feature of the fledgling World Wide Web, until being retired in
2001.
Development
======================================================================
The 128×128 px greyscale camera was connected to the laboratory's
local network through a video capture card fitted on an Acorn
Archimedes computer. Researcher Quentin Stafford-Fraser wrote the
client software, dubbed XCoffee and employing the X Window System
protocol, while his colleague Paul Jardetzky wrote the server program.
In 1993, web browsers gained the ability to display images; it soon
became clear that this would be an easier way to make the picture
available to users. The camera was connected to the Internet and the
live picture became available via HTTP in November of the same year,
by computer scientists Daniel Gordon and Martyn Johnson. It therefore
became visible worldwide and grew into a popular landmark of the early
web.
Retirement
======================================================================
Following the laboratory's move to its current premises in the William
Gates Building, the camera was eventually switched off, at 09:54 UTC
on 22 August 2001. Coverage of the shutdown included front-page
mentions in 'The Times' and 'The Washington Post', as well as articles
in 'The Guardian' and 'Wired'.
The last of the four or five coffee machines seen online, a Krups, was
auctioned on eBay for according to the German news website 'Der
Spiegel'. The pot was later refurbished pro bono by Krups employees,
and was switched on again in the magazine's editorial office. Since
the summer of 2016, the coffee maker is on permanent loan to the Heinz
Nixdorf MuseumsForum in Paderborn.
Legacy and cultural references
======================================================================
Spoofs of the Trojan Room coffee machine ranged from the Hyper Text
Coffee Pot Control Protocol, a 1998 April Fools' Day specification
for a communication protocol, to the 2002 video game 'Hitman 2: Silent
Assassin', in which the player can destroy a "coffee camera" in a
kitchen as a distraction. The coffee pot was also mentioned in the BBC
Radio 4 drama 'The Archers' on 24 February 2005.
External links
======================================================================
* [http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/coffee.html Trojan Room Coffee
Machine] original website
* [https://kaffee.hnf.de/ Heinz Nixdorf Museum Paderborn - CoffeeCam
Live View]
License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot
.
you're on gopherpedia.com^70/0//Trojan_Room_coffee_pot
back link is gopherpedia.com:70/1/