From HTTP’s earliest request/response patterns to CGI scripts and directory-like endpoints, 1990–1994 set the API-shaped foundation that FHIR later embraced for healthcare interoperability.
In the early 1990s, the Web’s simplest idea—request a resource with a URL over HTTP—quietly introduced patterns that would later define open banking APIs and financial data portability.
From the birth of the Web to Mosaic-era growth, 1990–1994 quietly introduced the first monetized, API-like products: HTTP gateways, CGI scripts, and paid data access—long before “API marketplaces” became a category.
Long before today’s cloud provider APIs, early HTTP servers, HTML forms, and CGI scripts (1990–1994) taught developers a powerful idea: infrastructure can be controlled through simple, stateless web interfaces.
In 1990–1994, the Web’s earliest HTTP interfaces favored small, single-purpose handlers long before anyone said “serverless.” This chapter traces how early gateways and CGI-style scripts foreshadowed today’s lightweight API backends.
Long before “Jamstack” had a name, early Web builders were already practicing its core idea: prebuilding pages from remote data. In 1990–1994, HTTP’s simple request/response model, early gateways, and CGI scripts laid the groundwork for build-time API consumption—even if nobody called it that yet.
From HTTP/0.9 GET to early headers and CGI, 1990–1994 quietly established the core patterns behind today’s headless CMS APIs and content delivery.
JWT didn’t exist in 1990–1994, but the Web’s first HTTP interfaces already wrestled with the same API authentication problems: stateless requests, shared gateways, and portable identity. This chapter traces the roots of token-based auth from early HTTP, Basic auth, CGI sessions, and the arrival of cookies.
In 1990–1994, the Web’s “API surface” was mostly URLs, HTTP methods, and early server scripts—not JavaScript calling APIs. This chapter explains how that era set up the later need for CORS and modern cross-origin rules.
In the Web’s first years (1990–1994), HTTP was tiny, servers were simple, and “APIs” mostly meant speaking basic request/response over the network. Those constraints later produced AJAX—and eventually the Fetch API, which modernized the same fundamental idea.