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The Trojan Room coffee pot was a
Following the laboratory's move to its current premises, the camera was eventually switched off, at 09:54
Trojan Room Coffee Machine
original website
Heinz Nixdorf Museum Paderborn - CoffeeCam Live View
{{Portal bar, Coffee, 1990s Internet properties established in 1991 Internet properties disestablished in 2001 British websites Cooking appliances Defunct websites History of Cambridge Internet culture University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory 1991 establishments in England 2001 disestablishments in England
The Trojan Room coffee pot was a coffee machine
A coffeemaker, coffee maker or coffee machine is a cooking appliance used to brew coffee. While there are many different types of coffeemakers, the two most common brewing principles use gravity or pressure to move hot water through coffee ...
located in the Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
, England. It was the subject of the world's first webcam
A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in Videotelephony, video telephony, live streaming and social media, and Closed-circuit television, security. Webcams can b ...
, 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
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
a few years later, the coffee pot gained international renown as a feature of the fledgling World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...
, until being retired in 2001.
Development
The 128×128 pxgreyscale
In digital photography, computer-generated imagery, and colorimetry, a greyscale (more common in Commonwealth English) or grayscale (more common in American English) image is one in which the value of each pixel is a single sample repres ...
camera was connected to the laboratory's local network
A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, campus, or building, and has its network equipment and interconnects locally managed. LANs facilitate the distribution of d ...
through a video capture card fitted on an Acorn Archimedes
The Acorn Archimedes is a family of personal computers designed by Acorn Computers of Cambridge, England. The systems in this family use Acorn's own ARM architecture processors and initially ran the Arthur operating system, with later models ...
computer. Researcher Quentin Stafford-Fraser wrote the client
Client(s) or The Client may refer to:
* Client (business)
* Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer
* Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuable ...
software, dubbed XCoffee and employing the X Window System
The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems.
X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...
protocol, while his colleague Paul Jardetzky wrote the server program.
In 1993, web browser
A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application 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 scr ...
s 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
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) 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 Web, wher ...
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, the camera was eventually switched off, at 09:54 UTC
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...
on 22 August 2001. Coverage of the shutdown included front-page mentions in ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'' and ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'', as well as articles in ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' and ''Wired
Wired may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976
* ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993
* ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017
* "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street''
* "Wired ...
''.
The last of the four or five coffee machines seen online, a Krups, was auctioned on eBay
eBay Inc. ( , often stylized as ebay) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. ...
for to the German news website ''Der Spiegel
(, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
''. The pot was later refurbished pro bono
( English: 'for the public good'), usually shortened to , is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. The term traditionally referred to provision of legal services by legal professionals for people who a ...
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
Paderborn (; Westphalian language, Westphalian: ''Patterbuorn'', also ''Paterboärn'') is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn (district), Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pade ...
.
Legacy and cultural references
Spoofs of the Trojan Room coffee machine ranged from theHyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol
The Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP) is a facetious communication protocol for controlling, monitoring, and diagnosing coffee pots. It is specified in , published on 1 April 1998 as an April Fools' Day RFC, as part of an April F ...
, 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
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...
drama ''The Archers
''The Archers'' is a British radio soap opera currently broadcast on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word Radio broadcasting, channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now pr ...
'' on 24 February 2005.
References
Further reading
*External links
Trojan Room Coffee Machine
original website
Heinz Nixdorf Museum Paderborn - CoffeeCam Live View
{{Portal bar, Coffee, 1990s Internet properties established in 1991 Internet properties disestablished in 2001 British websites Cooking appliances Defunct websites History of Cambridge Internet culture University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory 1991 establishments in England 2001 disestablishments in England