The Trojan Room coffee pot
You might remember it as Cambridge coffee cam
The archive has not found a surviving copy.
1991·Early web, before YouTube
A camera pointed at a coffee machine in a Cambridge computer laboratory, so that people elsewhere in the building could see whether there was any coffee.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- XCoffee
- Spread in
- 1991
- Began as
- A web page
- Made by
- Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky, at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
- Recorded
- A greyscale picture 128 pixels square
- Origin
- Not an upload originally
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
A 128x128 greyscale camera in the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory watched a filter coffee machine so researchers on other floors could see whether it was worth the walk. Built in 1991 for the building's own network, it was connected to the web in November 1993 — just as browsers learned to display images — and became one of the early internet's landmarks. It was switched off at 09:54 UTC on 22 August 2001.
Why it matteredWhat changed
Its picture went on the web in 1993 and stayed there for eight years.
TimelineIn order
- Made
The camera is set up and its picture sent round the laboratory’s own network.1
- Posted
Daniel Gordon and Martyn Johnson make the live picture available on the web.1
- Taken down
The camera is switched off at 09:54 in the morning.1
- Later
The last coffee machine, sold on eBay for 3,350 pounds and repaired by its maker, goes on permanent loan to a computing museum in Paderborn.1
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · a moment that changed what the internet did next · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later · the upload that made its maker known
This began as a web page, not as a video.
Where it came fromWhat we know
There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. There is no copy of it here either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This began as a web page, not as a video.
Created by Quentin Stafford-Fraser. Established by research, not by who posted the copy shown here.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things