Mark P. McCahill
Encyclopedia
Mark P. McCahill is an American programmer who has been involved in developing and popularizing a number of Internet
technologies since the late 1980s.
Mark McCahill received a BA in Chemistry at the University of Minnesota
in 1979, spent one year doing analytical environmental chemistry, and then joined the University of Minnesota Computer Center's microcomputer support group as an Apple II
and CDC Cyber
programmer.
In 1989, McCahill lead the team at the University of Minnesota that developed one of the first popular Internet e-mail clients, POPmail
, for the Macintosh (and later the PC). The usage of graphical user interface clients for Internet standards-based protocols proved to be one of the dominant themes in the popularization of the Internet. At about the same time as POPmail was being developed, Steve Dorner
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
developed Eudora
, and the user interface conventions found in these early efforts continue to be present in modern-day e-mail clients.
In 1991, McCahill led the original Gopher development team (Farhad Anklesaria, Paul Lindner, Dan Torrey, Bob Alberti), which invented a simple way to navigate distributed information resources on the Internet. Gopher's menu-based hypermedia
combined with full-text search engine
s paved the way for the popularization of the World Wide Web
and was the de facto standard for Internet information systems in the early to mid 1990s.
Working with other pioneers such as Tim Berners-Lee
, Marc Andreessen
, Alan Emtage
and Peter J. Deutsch (creators of Archie
) and Jon Postel
, McCahill was involved in creating and codifing the standard for Uniform Resource Locators (URLs).
In 1994-95 McCahill's team developed GopherVR
, a 3D user interface for the Gopher protocol to explore how spatial metaphors could be used to organize information and create social spaces. While there was significant interest in the mid-1990s in 3D Internet-enabled information/social spaces (see VRML
), the limitied capabilities of mainstream hardware resulted in little uptake of these technologies. Mark McCahill was involved in the Croquet project
along with David P. Reed
, Andreas Raab, David A Smith, Julian Lombardi
, and Alan Kay
.
In April 2007, McCahill left the University of Minnesota
to join the Office of Information Technology at Duke University
as an architect of 3-D learning and collaborative systems.
In February 2010, Mark McCahill was revealed by Peter Ludlow
(Urizenus Sklar) to be the Internet persona Pixeleen Mistral, the editor of The Alphaville Herald
, a newspaper covering virtual worlds founded by Ludlow.
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
technologies since the late 1980s.
Mark McCahill received a BA in Chemistry at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
in 1979, spent one year doing analytical environmental chemistry, and then joined the University of Minnesota Computer Center's microcomputer support group as an Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
and CDC Cyber
CDC Cyber
The CDC Cyber range of mainframe-class supercomputers were the primary products of Control Data Corporation during the 1970s and 1980s. In their day, they were the computer architecture of choice for scientific and mathematically intensive computing...
programmer.
In 1989, McCahill lead the team at the University of Minnesota that developed one of the first popular Internet e-mail clients, POPmail
POPmail
POPmail was an early e-mail client written at the University of Minnesota. The original version was a Hypercard stack that acted as a Post Office Protocol client. Later versions of POPmail were written as normal Macintosh applications, and a PC version of POPmail was also released...
, for the Macintosh (and later the PC). The usage of graphical user interface clients for Internet standards-based protocols proved to be one of the dominant themes in the popularization of the Internet. At about the same time as POPmail was being developed, Steve Dorner
Steve Dorner
Steve Dorner is an American software engineer. He developed the Eudora e-mail client in 1988 as a part of his work as a staff member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dorner was hired by Qualcomm in July 1992 and Eudora was subsequently acquired by Qualcomm...
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
developed Eudora
Eudora (e-mail client)
Eudora is an e-mail client used on the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows operating systems. It also supports several palmtop computing platforms, including Newton and the Palm OS....
, and the user interface conventions found in these early efforts continue to be present in modern-day e-mail clients.
In 1991, McCahill led the original Gopher development team (Farhad Anklesaria, Paul Lindner, Dan Torrey, Bob Alberti), which invented a simple way to navigate distributed information resources on the Internet. Gopher's menu-based hypermedia
Hypermedia
Hypermedia is a computer-based information retrieval system that enables a user to gain or provide access to texts, audio and video recordings, photographs and computer graphics related to a particular subject.Hypermedia is a term created by Ted Nelson....
combined with full-text search engine
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
s paved the way for the popularization of the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
and was the de facto standard for Internet information systems in the early to mid 1990s.
Working with other pioneers such as Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
, Marc Andreessen
Marc Andreessen
Marc Andreessen is an American entrepreneur, investor, software engineer, and multi-millionaire best known as co-author of Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser, and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. He founded and later sold the software company Opsware to Hewlett-Packard...
, Alan Emtage
Alan Emtage
Alan Emtage conceived and implemented the first version of Archie, a pre-Web internet search engine for locating material in public FTP archives....
and Peter J. Deutsch (creators of Archie
Archie search engine
Archie is a tool for indexing FTP archives, allowing people to find specific files. It is considered to be the first Internet search engine. The original implementation was written in 1990 by Alan Emtage, Bill Heelan, and J...
) and Jon Postel
Jon Postel
Jonathan Bruce Postel was an American computer scientist who made many significant contributions to the development of the Internet, particularly with respect to standards...
, McCahill was involved in creating and codifing the standard for Uniform Resource Locators (URLs).
In 1994-95 McCahill's team developed GopherVR
GopherVR
GopherVR is an enhanced Internet Gopher client that includes a 3D visualization tool for viewing resource collections as 3D scenes.In 1995, the Gopher developers at the University of Minnesota released GopherVR...
, a 3D user interface for the Gopher protocol to explore how spatial metaphors could be used to organize information and create social spaces. While there was significant interest in the mid-1990s in 3D Internet-enabled information/social spaces (see VRML
VRML
VRML is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind...
), the limitied capabilities of mainstream hardware resulted in little uptake of these technologies. Mark McCahill was involved in the Croquet project
Croquet Project
The Croquet Project was an international effort to promote the continued development of the Croquet open source software development kit for creating and delivering deeply collaborative multi-user online applications....
along with David P. Reed
David P. Reed
David P. Reed is an American computer scientist, educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, known for a number of significant contributions to computer networking....
, Andreas Raab, David A Smith, Julian Lombardi
Julian Lombardi
Julian Lombardi is an American inventor, author, educator, and computer scientist known for his work with socio-computational systems, scalable virtual world technologies, and in the design and deployment of deeply collaborative virtual learning environments.- Biography :Lombardi was born to a...
, and Alan Kay
Alan Kay
Alan Curtis Kay is an American computer scientist, known for his early pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface design, and for coining the phrase, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."He is the president of the Viewpoints Research...
.
In April 2007, McCahill left the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
to join the Office of Information Technology at Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
as an architect of 3-D learning and collaborative systems.
In February 2010, Mark McCahill was revealed by Peter Ludlow
Peter Ludlow
Peter Ludlow , who also writes under the name Urizenus Sklar, is a professor of philosophy at Northwestern University. Before moving to Northwestern, Ludlow taught at University of Toronto, the University of Michigan, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook...
(Urizenus Sklar) to be the Internet persona Pixeleen Mistral, the editor of The Alphaville Herald
The Alphaville Herald
The Alphaville Herald is a newspaper covering virtual worlds, founded by Northwestern University philosophy professor Peter Ludlow on October 23, 2003....
, a newspaper covering virtual worlds founded by Ludlow.