Wikipedia

Wikipedia:WikiProject Websites/Early web history task force/FreeAssociation

< Wikipedia:WikiProject Websites | Early web history task force

Free Association

edit

Use this to engage in free association so that contributors can help "prompt" each other's memory of what the Web once was, and brainstorm ideas. Feel free to add anything that comes to mind, and rearrange thoughts.

  • The <blink> tag
    • And animated gifs!
    • The multiple-body bug in Netscape 1.1, which allowed a crude fade-in effect. This was fixed in 1.2. Anyone else remember it?
  • Pre-CSS HTML style (serifed font, blue links, purple visited links)
  • Netscape Navigator
    • "This page best viewed with Netscape Navigator" (snag a copy of the Netscape icon from here)
    • "Internet in a Box"
  • Netcom,This company sent out FREE discs with it's browser "NetCruiser" and Internet connection phone numbers in the L.A. area in 1995. It required minimum: IBM-compatible PC with a 386 or greater processor, 9600-baud modem or greater, Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS 5.0 (or greater) or Windows 95, 4 Mbytes of RAM. Price was $19.95 a month.
  • www.tripod.com was an "underground" FREE web site host/online editor in 1995.
  • Here's a great story about working there in 1996: [1]
  • senate.gov and www.house.gov came online in 1994
  • thomas.gov came online in January 1995
  • NSFNET stopped being the backbone in 1995
  • HyperDiscordia! i remember being thrilled to find this way back. according to their old news (and if i am doing my Discordian calendar math right, they started in 1994.
  • The hype around Java & VRML!
  • Mapquest launched on Feb 5, 1996

Pre-1995 Sites

edit

Finding info on pre-95 sites is hard! How about:

Early Web Humor

edit

(early = 1995 and earlier):

edit

February 8, 1996

edit

Award sites

edit

Gopher stuff

edit
  • Archie
  • Veronica
  • Jughead (I can actually remember trying to figure out if Veronica or Jughead was a better tool)
    • I assume we're sticking to Web history - other Internet resources have their own history. Although it should be mentioned that a lot of Web culture actually started by Gopher, popular FTP sites, Usenet, etc.
    • So does that mean SIMTEL is included or excluded? I can think of reasons for either position.

Pre-Netscape Browsers

edit

For those who haven't experienced the second through fifth ones, there is an excellent emulator of them.

Old Starting Points

edit

Someone has a mirror of one of Bob Allison's Bobaworld pages [2] - which itself was a notable page at the time (which Bob Allison would remind you of constantly on his site in case you forgot). Looking at this, it brings up (among other nice tidbits) some old "must see" starting places:

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Websites/Early_web_history_task_force/FreeAssociation&oldid=415335084"