Before JSON, before REST, and before public developer portals, HTML forms quietly created the first mainstream user-to-server API pattern on the early Web—turning clicks into structured HTTP requests.
Before REST and JSON, CGI scripts turned early websites into programmable interfaces. From 1990–1994, CGI and server-side integration quietly shaped the first usable patterns of web APIs.
Before “web APIs” had a name, early HTTP and the newborn World Wide Web (1990–1994) established the core patterns APIs still use: resources, stateless requests, URIs, and a simple request/response contract.
Between 1990 and 1994, CGI scripts turned the early Web from static documents into interactive services. This chapter explains how the first practical HTTP interfaces worked—requests as inputs, script output as responses—and how that pattern became the backbone of modern web APIs.
Chapter 1 (1990–1994) of web API history: how early HTTP turned the newborn Web into a programmable interface—long before “REST” and “JSON” became everyday terms.