The Story of the First Web Camera: The Coffee Maker in the Trojan Room
In the early 1990s, before the age of search engines and social media, the University of Cambridge was becoming the epicenter of a small technological revolution. What started as a practical solution to monitor a simple coffee maker became the first example of live streaming technology, marking the birth of the modern webcam. The coffee maker in the Trojan Room, located in the University's Computer Laboratory, made history thanks to a video camera connected to the computer network and later to the Internet.
How it all began!
In 1991, researchers Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky, faced with the problem of the often empty coffee maker, decided to install a video camera to monitor the coffee level. The coffee maker was located in the Trojan Room, and many of the researchers worked in other rooms or even on other floors. The frustration of making the drive only to find there was no coffee left inspired this ingenious solution.
The camera, a 128×128 grayscale pixel unit, was connected to an Acorn Archimedes computer via a video capture card. Quentin Stafford-Fraser created the client software, called XCoffee, which allowed images to be displayed via the X Window System protocol, and Paul Jardetzky developed the server software. Thus, the image of the coffee maker became accessible to all computers in the laboratory's internal network.
The researchers connected a small Philips camera to provide the images.
How a cold coffee lit the fire of the Internet! Evolution: from the local network to the Internet!
In 1993, with the ability of web browsers to display images, the idea of connecting the camera to the Internet took shape. Daniel Gordon and Martyn Johnson adapted the system to allow access via HTTP, which made images of the coffee maker available to users around the world. The image was updated three times a minute, showing the coffee pot either empty, full, or, at "pulsating" moments, half full.
The original webcam updated the image of a coffee maker about three times a minute.
This camera, known as the world's first webcam, quickly attracted international attention, becoming a symbol of the early Internet. Millions of users around the world accessed the camera feed, and the coffee maker was included in popular culture. For example, American tourists visiting Cambridge would request to see the famous coffee shop.
The coffee maker that retired, but remained a legend! Statement of a Symbol: The Last Days
After 10 years of operation and notoriety, in August 2001, the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory moved to a new location and the system had become difficult to maintain. Trojan Room Coffee Pot and the camera monitoring it were taken out of service on 22 August 2001 at 09:54 UTC. an event that was reported on the front page of publications such as The Times and The Washington Post. The last image captured by the camera was a hand reaching out to shut down the server.
The coffee maker itself, a Krups model, was sold on eBay for £3,350 to German news website Der Spiegel. After restoration, it was used in the magazine's editorial office, and since 2016 it has been in the permanent custody of the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum in Paderborn, Germany as a historical exhibit.
From Hot Coffee to Pixels of Glory: Cultural Heritage
The coffee maker in the Trojan Room has had an impact that goes beyond the technological sphere. It inspired jokes like the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (a fictional protocol created by engineers in 1998) and was included in the video game Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, where players could destroy a video camera in a kitchen as a diversion.
It has also appeared on shows such as BBC Radio 4's The Archers and has been the subject of much discussion in the tech community. After the camera closed, there was a wave of nostalgia among users who had seen this project as an example of the power of the Internet to connect people through simple and funny things.
From the coffee maker to technological history
Trojan Room Coffee Pot demonstrated how a practical and seemingly trivial idea can become a milestone in the history of technology. From solving an everyday problem to becoming a global symbol of the Internet, the story of the first webcam remains an iconic example of human ingenuity. Now the coffee maker is a historical artifact, but its impact on the development of live streaming and webcam technologies continues to be felt in every video call or live broadcast we make today.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20439301