Before the webcam had a name, one was watching a coffee pot.

The Trojan Room coffee pot — Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge

In 1991, researchers at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory shared one filter coffee machine. To save colleagues a wasted walk, they pointed a camera at it and sent a small image of the pot across the lab’s network. Later the picture was put on the World Wide Web — and people around the world started checking a coffee pot in Cambridge.