Cello is an early, discontinued graphical

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...

for

Windows 3.1 Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0. Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Codenamed Janus, Windows 3 ...

; it was developed by Thomas R. Bruce of the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. It was released as shareware in 1993. While other browsers ran on various

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, an ...

machines, Cello was the first

for Microsoft Windows, using the

winsock In computing, the Windows Sockets API (WSA), later shortened to Winsock, is an application programming interface (API) that defines how Windows network application software should access network services, especially TCP/IP. It defines a standar ...

system to access the Internet. In addition to the basic Windows, Cello worked on Windows NT 3.5 and with small modifications on

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 r ...

. Cello was created because of a demand for Web access by lawyers, who were more likely to use Microsoft Windows than the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

s supporting earlier Web browsers, including the first release of

Mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

. The lack of a Windows browser meant many legal experts were unable to access legal information made available in hypertext on the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...

. Cello was popular during 1993/1994, but fell out of favor following the release of

for Windows and Netscape, after which Cello development was abandoned.You can view yahoo browser statistics at https://web.archive.org/web/20021204042351/http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~ejk/bryl/ which show Cello being used. Cello was first publicly released on 8 June 1993. A version 2.0 was announced, but development was abandoned. Version 1.01a, 16 April 1994, was the last public release. Since then, the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School has licensed the Cello 2.0 source code, which has been used to develop

commercial software Commercial software, or seldom payware, is a computer software that is produced for sale or that serves commercial purposes. Commercial software can be proprietary software or free and open-source software. Background and challenge While sof ...

. The browser is no longer available from its original homepage.The original cello site at https://www.law.cornell.edu/cello/cellotop.html is no longer up. The original ftp site at ftp://ftp.law.cornell.edu/pub/LII/Cello is no longer up. The original gopher server at gopher.law.cornell.edu:70/11/listservs/cellol/ is no longer up. However, it can still be downloaded from mirror sites.Cello can still be downloaded at https://browsers.evolt.org/browsers/archive/cello .

Development and history

The development of Cello started in 1992, with beta versions planned for June 1993 and a release for July 1993. It was publicly announced on 12 April 1993. The Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School created the first law site on the Internet in 1992 and the first legal

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wi ...

in 1993. However, at the time, there were no

s for the Microsoft Windows operating system, which was used by most lawyers. Thus, to allow lawyers to use their website, the Legal Information Institute developed the first Windows-based Web browser. This was made possible by a grant from the National Center for Automated Information Research.This can be seen in the "About Cello" dialog in Cello. It is also stated in the "Notices, Acknowledgments, Disclaimers" section of the included .hlp file in Cello. Although other browsers at the time were based on CERN's WWW libraries called

libwww Libwww was an early World Wide Web software library providing core functions for browsers, implementing HTML, HTTP, and other technologies. Tim Berners-Lee, at CERN, released libwww (then also called the "Common Library") in late 1992, comprising ...

, PCs of the time were not powerful enough to run the UNIX-oriented code. As a result, Thomas Bruce had to rewrite most of the WWW libraries to work on Microsoft Windows. Unlike most commercial browsers at that time, Cello used none of

's source code and thus had a different look and feel. Steven Sinofsky, president of the

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

division at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

wrote in a June 1994 email: ''We do not currently plan on any other client software n the upcoming release of Windows 95 especially something like Mosaic or Cello.'' Nevertheless, on 11 January 1995, Microsoft announced that it had licensed the Mosaic technology from

Spyglass Spyglass may refer to: * Another term for a hand-held refracting telescope A refracting telescope (also called a refractor) is a type of optical telescope that uses a lens as its objective to form an image (also referred to a dioptric tel ...

, which it would use to create

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems ( ...

. On 15 August 1995,

debuted its own web browser Internet Explorer 1 for

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...

. While it did not ship with the original release of Windows 95, it shipped with Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95.

Usage

When released in 1993, Cello was the only browser for the Microsoft Windows platform. Shortly after launch, Cello was being downloaded at a rate of 500 copies per day. As such, it achieved a fair amount of use and recognition within the legal community, including a number of PC users with between 150,000 and 200,000 users. In 1994, most websites were visited using either the Cello browser or the Mosaic browser. Despite having fewer features than Mosaic, Cello continued to be used due to its simpler interface and lower system requirements. Cello was praised for being easy to install, because it wasn't necessary to install

Win32s Win32s is a 32-bit application runtime environment for the Microsoft Windows 3.1 and 3.11 operating systems. It allowed some 32-bit applications to run on the 16-bit operating system using call thunks. A beta version of Win32s was available in Oct ...

or a TCP/IP stack for Windows 3.1. Following the release of

, which offered a much better TCP/IP interface, Cello fell into disuse and was abandoned. By 1995, Cello, like the Mosaic browser, was overshadowed by two newer browsers — Netscape and Internet Explorer — and fell into disuse. By 1999, Cello was considered to be a "historical" browser. Cello is considered to be one of the early casualties of the

Browser wars A browser war is competition for dominance in the usage share of web browsers. The "first browser war," (1995-2001) pitted Microsoft's Internet Explorer against Netscape's Navigator. Browser wars continued with the decline of Internet Explore ...

Features

Cello had the following features: Unlike

, ''Cello did not have toolbar buttons'', and instead commands were accessed through pull-down menus. ;Supported Protocols Cello supported the following protocols:

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide We ...

1.0,

Gopher Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They are ...

(but not Gopher+), read-only

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

SMTP The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients ty ...

mailing,

Telnet Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet contr ...

Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...

, CSO/ph/qi directly and WAIS, HyTelnet, TechInfo, Archie, X.500,

TN3270 The IBM 3270 is a family of block oriented display and printer computer terminals introduced by IBM in 1971 and normally used to communicate with IBM mainframes. The 3270 was the successor to the IBM 2260 display terminal. Due to the text ...

and a number of others through public gateways. ;Supported FTP servers Cello supported the following FTP servers: most Unix servers (including SunOS, System V, and Linux), IBM VM, VMS systems, Windows NT, QVTNet, NCSA/CUTCP/Rutgers PC servers, FTP Software PC server, HellSoft NLM for Novell. ;Internet Connection Cello works best with a direct

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...

connection, but it also supports

SLIP Slip or SLIP may refer to: Science and technology Biology * Slip (fish), also known as Black Sole * Slip (horticulture), a small cutting of a plant as a specimen or for grafting * Muscle slip, a branching of a muscle, in anatomy Computing and ...

and PPP dialup connections through the use of asynchronous sockets. Cello has an integrated

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

runtime stack.

Release history

The following versions were released: Although Cello 2.0 had been announced, development ceased before a public release. IBM released a fix for their TCP/IP V2.0 stack so that Cello would work with OS/2 WinOS/2 on 9 February 1994.

Browser comparison table

The following table shows how Cello compared to browsers of its time.

Derivatives

* The first edition of BURKS, a project to produce non-profit CD-ROMs of resources for students of Computer Science, was based on Cello. * InterAp, by California Software Inc, was based on Cello and featured a web browser with Telnet, FTP, and a

Visual Basic Visual Basic is a name for a family of programming languages from Microsoft. It may refer to: * Visual Basic .NET (now simply referred to as "Visual Basic"), the current version of Visual Basic launched in 2002 which runs on .NET * Visual Basic ( ...

-compatible scripting language called NetScripts. * A version of Lovelace came bundled with Cello.

Technical

While originally Cello required the Distinct Corporation's TCP/IP stack, with the release of Cello Beta Version .8, Cello dropped support for Distinct, and became exclusively

Winsock In computing, the Windows Sockets API (WSA), later shortened to Winsock, is an application programming interface (API) that defines how Windows network application software should access network services, especially TCP/IP. It defines a standar ...

-based. Originally, although Cello could run on

, OS/2's implementation of Winsock had bugs that prevented Cello from accessing the Internet. The bug, ''APAR #PN52335'', was later fixed allowing Cello to properly work on OS/2. The user agent for Cello is

LII-Cello/  libwww 

Libwww was an early World Wide Web software library providing core functions for  browsers, implementing HTML, HTTP, and other technologies. Tim Berners-Lee, at CERN, released libwww (then also called the "Common Library") in late 1992, comprising ...
/2.5

DDE support

Cello featured

Dynamic Data Exchange In computing, Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) is a technology for interprocess communication used in early versions of Microsoft Windows and OS/2. DDE allows programs to manipulate objects provided by other programs, and respond to user actions affec ...

(DDE) support. OLE support and DDE client support were planned, but never released. An example of how to invoke Cello from a

Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor, word processing software developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name ''Multi-Tool Word'' for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other pla ...

macro: Sub MAIN ChanNum = DDEInitiate("Cello", "URL") DDEExecute(ChanNum, "http://www.law.cornell.edu") DDETerminate(ChanNum) End Sub

System requirements

Cello has the following system requirements: *

Processor Processor may refer to: Computing Hardware * Processor (computing) **Central processing unit (CPU), the hardware within a computer that executes a program *** Microprocessor, a central processing unit contained on a single integrated circuit (I ...

: 80386(386SX) at 16 MHz or better *

Operating System An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

/ 3.11 / Windows NT 3.5 /

. *

Ram Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

: 2 MB

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

, 4 MB RAM recommended * A TCP/ IP connection running Winsock

Criticism

Cello was not very stable and its development halted early. Cello did not render graphics well and required that the user reload the webpage when resizing the window. Like most browsers at the time, Cello also did not support any web security protocols. It was also said that Cello rendered html "crudely" and pages would appear jaggedly. Cello also had sub-par performance in accessing the Internet and processing hypermedia documents.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * *

External links

*
Cello: a well strung instrument

Cello index at W3C
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cello (Web Browser) Windows web browsers Gopher clients Cornell University 1993 software 1994 software Discontinued web browsers OS/2 web browsers