From CGI scripts and HTML forms to early browser scripting, 1995–1998 created the need for structured, portable data—setting the stage for XML in web API history.
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.
XML wasn’t yet a web standard in 1990–1994, but the early Web’s HTTP interfaces, CGI scripts, and MIME content types created the exact need XML later filled: predictable, self-describing data that could move cleanly between systems.