Webcam was invented in 1991 by researchers to check if the coffee pot in another room is empty or not.
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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So MUCH has been invented because of coffee.
“One of the things that’s very, very important in computer science research is a regular and dependable flow of caffeine,” explains Dr Quentin Stafford-Fraser.
But the problem for scientists was that the coffee pot was stationed in the main computer lab, known as the Trojan room, and many of the researchers worked in different labs and on different floors.
“They would often turn up to get some coffee from the pot, only to find it had all been drunk,” Dr Stafford-Fraser remembers.
Word got out, and before long millions of tech enthusiasts from around the world were accessing images of the **Trojan room coffee pot.**
Dr Stafford-Fraser remembers receiving emails from Japan asking if a light could be left on overnight so that the pot could be seen in different time zones.
The Cambridge Tourist Information office had to direct visitors from the US to the computer lab to see it for themselves.
The Trojan room coffee pot was sold at auction – predictably over the internet – for £3,350.
“The Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP) is a … communication protocol for controlling, monitoring, and diagnosing coffee pots.” (Wikipedia)
HTTP status code 418 means “I’m a teapot”.
If you kill the Joe, you make some Mo!
“Hey, the coffee monitoring device now stay with me, seeing strangers genitalia ACROSS THE GLOBE! …huh!? Huh!? come on high five.”
“Necessity is the mother of invention”
Dang
The importance of coffee availability is fundamental and shall not be ridiculed.
Reminds me of my porch cam, pointed at the inner corner of my front porch where packages are left. I’m not worried about security, I just don’t want to have to open the door to check.
xcoffee? so this ran on X11?
Nostalgia Nerd just put out a video about this: https://youtu.be/IOqlDsfTC6g?si=UmqmrwPRzsQuTld_
Hell yes
Gotta get your priorities right
So instead of just…not leaving the pot empty…
“Necessity is the mother of invention”
– Wayne Gretzky
πενία τέχνας κατεργάζεται
Coffee is a fantastic motivator 😂 ☕️
I remember that. Within a couple of years there were several such static monitoring type cameras on the Internet. I seem to recall a couple of university campus views and a fishtank.
Edit…OK 3 years before the fishtank turned up:
https://www.fishcam.com/
Yet again, coffee proves itself to be the world’s most effective stimulant. Both of brains and internet porn economies.
And now look where we are… dang capitalistsurveillancehellscape
How long did it take for someone to put a picture of a full pot of coffee in front of the empty pot of coffee?
I also enjoy the story behind the 418 error code
https://http.cat/status/418
Even back than they had the x already in the name, foreshadowing the future use.
[Related](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes):
> HTTP 418 I’m a teapot (RFC 2324, RFC 7168)
> This code was defined in 1998 as one of the traditional IETF April Fools’ jokes, in RFC 2324, Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol, and is not expected to be implemented by actual HTTP servers.
> The RFC specifies this code should be returned by teapots requested to brew coffee. This HTTP status is used as an Easter egg in some websites, such as Google.com’s “I’m a teapot” easter egg. Sometimes, this status code is also used as a response to a blocked request, instead of the more appropriate 403 Forbidden.
Did you know there is an HTTP 418 response code that is to state the device is a teapot?
This fits right in with the webcam.
HTTP 418. Jokes on you.
xCoffee, to view the livestream of the coffee pot.
The livestream of their research hamsters is still running, and you can view it at http://www.xHamster.com
It didn’t become a “webcam” until browsers had the ability to display images in 1993.
It was invented as a X Windows app running on Cambridge University’s local network
People don’t understand how revolutionary it was to see digitized photographic images on a computer screen back in the day. Back in the home computing days of the 80’s, for example, you would never see a photo on a computer screen. It was all crude, jagged graphics. You’d certainly never see video. The first few times I’d see a very roughly digitized photo on, say, a Commodore 64, it felt like the beginning of a new era. I was on an apprenticeship in a software company in 1990 and one of the guys who worked there showed me a porn clip on one of the IBM PC’s, it was black and white and probably about 100×100 resolution and only lasted about 5 seconds but it was video and recognizable as hardcore porn and I thought wow, porn on a computer! That’s insane! People are actually going to be jacking off to their computer screens! I had no idea just how strongly it would take off.
And my roommate calls me insane for installing a webcam in the laundry room so I know when the cycle has completed without having to go and check, only to find that it’s still running. And another one at the front door that’s specifically aimed at the ground so I can check for delivered packages. Who’s laughing now, Mike??
I also put a door sensor in the mailbox so I know when the mail arrives, since they don’t leave packages and I kept having to drive down to the post office to pick them up the next day. Now I can go down and meet the mailman for my shit before he takes off