Exactly, it's giving me big nostalgia flashbacks to the pre-reddit days. I was on SU so much for years, used the social communities, and was pretty excited to discover reddit. I can't believe it's been 20 years, ouch
As I read, I found myself tilting my phone back more and more to get the photos as out-of-focus as possible while still being able to read. By the time the hot dogs vanished, I found myself unable to continue.
I salute this person’s dedication to scientific discovery, but I could smell those photos through the screen. Nope.
# Created by WebMap 1.0
# Wednesday, August 30, 1995 at 2:16 AM
# Format: NCSA
#
rect /INDEX/index.html 0,0 75,18
rect /SEARCH/index.html 75,0 135,18
rect /index.html 135,0 260,18
rect /US/OJ/index.html 260,0 470,18
Its premise seems to be that America failed. The link took me to the write-ups of what happened to the states. Example: "Montana and Wyoming have largely fragmented. All government is local, and the locals seem determined to keep it that way. The population is completely disgusted with national government and aims to show that local government can perform far better than any distant bureaucracy. Portions of Wyoming and Montana have been claimed by other states, but by and large this is the most lawless and best armed stretch of the West."
Another: "The bulk of Nevada is desert, not even worth the effort of laying claim to. Most of the inhabitants southeast of the Sierra Nevadas are desert air pirates, scrub ranchers, and rattlesnakes."
Reddit truly had some great AMAs. The first Bill Gates one was great, Obama’s was exciting. But my favorite moment was Ken Bone being revealed to be into pornography of pregnant women.
But enough about beautiful human submarines, can we please talk about rampart
Looks like it hasn't been updated since 1997. I kinda wanna track down the author and see if he's kept up with some of the new world record tricks that have been found since then!
I got the albino squirrel preservation society. It doesn’t get more random than that. I checked out a couple more and it makes miss the old web of the 90s.
I've realized this true randomness is something that current Web does not offer, all the algorithms are so optimized to keep bringing "what interests you" or "what interests lot of people".
The randomness is so addictive, and perhaps even a bit dangerous.
It's a small website created by a comedian. You can see by the link at the bottom of the page. It's not actually NSFW, but I do like the pose of the old lady like she's some sort of horror movie serial killer.
I got sent to some nutjob's site where he tells you all about the superior space technology NASA refuses to use called slingshotting the rockets into space. I say nutjob because most of his site is dedicated to conspiracy theories and holy shit it's still active he's even got a youtube now
More fun and innocent - Speculative biology! Hell yeah weird alien turtle dinosaurs! Actually pretty cool and I think still active? The illustrations are really neat
Also hilariously, I also found a site all about finding interesting web 1.0 pages which even links to what you've linked. It's also full of tips and tricks on how to recreate that web 1.0 jank on your own blog!
I remember when Heaven’s Gate was first on the news. I went online and looked at their site. You have to give them credit for maintaining it for all these years.
It was such an exciting time. Being an awkward teen back then the internet was a great place for me to socialize and meet new people. There was nothing better than seeing my hit counter number go up showing that people were visiting the website I made.
This is what the internet used to be like. You'd have a very simple webpage/website set up dedicated to a hobby or something personal that might interest you and put it out there for people to come across and read. I really miss this era of the internet.
I wonder if all the Geocities sites are still up. I tried searching for the one I made when I was about 16. I called it Eric’s World. Cringe I know but still would be neat to see it at 45.
until just a few years ago many small sites were not https capable because globally trusted SSL/TLS certifcates were expensive and difficult to get. the amazing people at LetsEncrypt worked hard to fix this, however many ancient sites have not been updated to take advantage of easy https access.
the danger of visiting a http-only site is real (man-in-the-middle content injection and private information compromise), but likely not much more than actualy visiting the site wth https. an http-only site is possibly indicative of an unmaintained server and therefore a server that could be previously compromised and serving malicious content. of course, the same applies to an https server, but my guard is always up on an http only connection. obviously I would not pass sensitive information across an http-only connection.
use precautions (e.g. javascript off) when hitting random servers if you do decide to click links.
Which as discovered by clicking "go back to previous page" as well as context on the page was that it was a redirect from all of the links on this page: http://pages.swcp.com/~mccurley/danger/danger.html that were things like "click here to (do x bad thing) to your machine"
Got redirected to https://www.operating-system.org/ , which looks web 2.0 rather than 1.0... And seems like the kind of site that I actually want to read, nonetheless
How does it find "web 1.0" sites? Does it just crawl sites and sort out the ones that don't use javascript or inline style tags? What rules does it use?
This takes me back to the glory days of stumbleupon.
I miss SU so much...this is awesome!
Exactly, it's giving me big nostalgia flashbacks to the pre-reddit days. I was on SU so much for years, used the social communities, and was pretty excited to discover reddit. I can't believe it's been 20 years, ouch
I'm obsessed with the one I got https://www.stinkymeat.net/stinkymeat/day1/
A guy dropped raw meat on a plate in his neighbors lawn and documented the decomposition.
What a ride!
As I read, I found myself tilting my phone back more and more to get the photos as out-of-focus as possible while still being able to read. By the time the hot dogs vanished, I found myself unable to continue.
I salute this person’s dedication to scientific discovery, but I could smell those photos through the screen. Nope.
A steak, what appears to be maybe 2lbs of ground beef and a half dozen hotdogs for $7.31....
That would easily cost me $30 today!
I can’t believe someone has paid for that domain name for 23 years… O_O
His email aliases are definitely on point tho.
This was awesome! I got so invested in the story! You landed on a goldmine with this one!
This was... interesting.
I stopped at day 17. Not sure if it goes farther, but that was a rough one.
Wow
I went in for seconds and landed here: http://firedrake.org/roger/csarchive/universe/states.htm This is sooo cool and I don't even know what it is! Has anyone heard of Crimson Skies computer game??
Its premise seems to be that America failed. The link took me to the write-ups of what happened to the states. Example: "Montana and Wyoming have largely fragmented. All government is local, and the locals seem determined to keep it that way. The population is completely disgusted with national government and aims to show that local government can perform far better than any distant bureaucracy. Portions of Wyoming and Montana have been claimed by other states, but by and large this is the most lawless and best armed stretch of the West."
Another: "The bulk of Nevada is desert, not even worth the effort of laying claim to. Most of the inhabitants southeast of the Sierra Nevadas are desert air pirates, scrub ranchers, and rattlesnakes."
Not gonna lie...it got me at Air Pirates!
Crimson skies was an awesome dieselpunk arcade plane game. It's owned by Microsoft and the second game was a hit on the Xbox. I still have a copy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Skies:_High_Road_to_Revenge
Crimson Skies was a great game!
All those faction names are so amazing. Nation of Hollywood and Industrial States of America go hard.
http://www.themostamazingwebsiteontheinternet.com/
Truly the most amazing website on the internet. (Just a heads up, there are some flashing images)
What are the odds that the random website it gave me was my physics study guide in high school? The Hyperphysics website
That's a bookmark for me! And as a slightly related recommendation, if you like this stuff, you should play Hypnospace Outlaw.
Edit: Since everyone is sharing what they got, the link led me to some cool pixel fonts
Here's something I got that looks like it was pulled straight from Hypnospace: http://d21c.com/bthelioness/KrazyPage.html
I totally thought of Hypnospace right away withthe link I pulled: http://jgeoff.com/homepage/
This was a fun one to get directed to. Quite a reminder of what reddit used to be. http://amatranscripts.com/
Reddit truly had some great AMAs. The first Bill Gates one was great, Obama’s was exciting. But my favorite moment was Ken Bone being revealed to be into pornography of pregnant women.
But enough about beautiful human submarines, can we please talk about rampart
A whole website dedicated to alchemy and alchemical accessories. Super neat! https://www.alchemywebsite.com/
I got a curated list of shortcuts found on different tracks in Mario Kart 64.
https://davidwonn.kontek.net/mk64.html
Looks like it hasn't been updated since 1997. I kinda wanna track down the author and see if he's kept up with some of the new world record tricks that have been found since then!
https://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/500-miles
Reminds me of the days of StumbleUpon, good times on the internet back then
We were all so innocent (relatively) then
Oddly this is way more entertaining than reddt was on it's best days.
This is some big stumbleupon energy.
Hey OP. Let's make a community out of this. Where we post each site that link took us to.
I'm down. Mine was a cowboy beebop fan page.
let me know if/when you make it; i’ll join
That's honestly a work of modern art
I got https://www.geocities.ws/misterralls/index.html and now I want to know how Mike Ralls is doing since the enshitification and whether he continued rock climbing
I found him on LinkedIn. Looks to be happy. No idea if he is still climbing though. Finished his master's degree however!
Endless fun.
I got a nice hit:
http://toastytech.com/evil/index.html
This was updated recently, even. Recent enough to mention Win11.
I got the history of AM radio and then something called Hot Dog Linux lmfao
I got the albino squirrel preservation society. It doesn’t get more random than that. I checked out a couple more and it makes miss the old web of the 90s.
Hanna Montana themed Linux: https://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/index.html
Apple 2e vs modern computers: https://danluu.com/input-lag/
I've realized this true randomness is something that current Web does not offer, all the algorithms are so optimized to keep bringing "what interests you" or "what interests lot of people".
The randomness is so addictive, and perhaps even a bit dangerous.
I ... can't stop clicking
This is certainly unexpected: http://n64devkit.square7.ch/
I also ended up in a page for a family with links to webcams and a bunch of old family photos.
I miss web 1.0
This person is still updating their Mug root beer site. Just updated on 2022.
http://kpolsson.com/mugshots/
Not to be confused with Mug, a root beer brand lol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mug_Root_Beer
Are web rings back???
Honestly I think so, on neocities and others!
Make sure you reserve your space in Geocities! New neighborhoods opening monthly! Or you can host on Angelfire.
I got https://www.w3.org/History.html which is very apt
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THIS (nsfw)
Woah, I don’t even know what to say. That was something else for sure.
I don't... what is... why does...
I think I need to lie down.
That was more or less my reaction .-.
I expected something nice... but this was the first thing I got when I clicked the link
It's a small website created by a comedian. You can see by the link at the bottom of the page. It's not actually NSFW, but I do like the pose of the old lady like she's some sort of horror movie serial killer.
Oh i remember that site. its just another shock site.
Poor mykel felps
https://restaurantmnd.ytmnd.com/
http://phobialist.com/ wow.
hey all you cool cats and kittens!
Fairly sure Carol Baskin made this website.
The Pirate Surgeon
This is legitimately interesting stuff. Cool little site.
That is wild! Like a blend of nostalgia and time travel. When the internet was just free and wild. One of the pages had midi music!
I got sent to some nutjob's site where he tells you all about the superior space technology NASA refuses to use called slingshotting the rockets into space. I say nutjob because most of his site is dedicated to conspiracy theories and holy shit it's still active he's even got a youtube now
More fun and innocent - Speculative biology! Hell yeah weird alien turtle dinosaurs! Actually pretty cool and I think still active? The illustrations are really neat
Also hilariously, I also found a site all about finding interesting web 1.0 pages which even links to what you've linked. It's also full of tips and tricks on how to recreate that web 1.0 jank on your own blog!
https://www.reviewmylife.co.uk/kettlecookery/
How to cook using a kettle.
https://www.bingeandgrab.com/
A Buckethead fan site for all your Buckethead news, theories, and fan art.
A haiku from the author:
when he plays it's like
the sounds of those dead chickens
coming through his hands
This is so cool. Why am I legitimately this excited for old ass webpages?
They're a piece of living history. It's like being able to walk into a ren fair or look on a piece of art in it's creation
Because it's the closest we'll ever get to time traveling
.__. uhhh... This content is questionable.
http://starmen.net/cult/
what the..
EathBoundhasCult
It sent me to someone's obituary.
The internet has changed so much, I automatically assumed this was a furry website when I landed there http://diabellalovescats.com/
Tbh I am still not 100% convinced that it is not.
I don't know why, but this made me smile.
His YouTube channel is great.
Nice one, that's a treasure trove of information!
A tribute to... The most frightening S ever
That was a wild ride.... Top two: Heavens Gate and a furbo autopsy.
https://www.heavensgate.com/ http://phobe.com/furby/
I remember when Heaven’s Gate was first on the news. I went online and looked at their site. You have to give them credit for maintaining it for all these years.
The nostalgia this brings me when I look at these pages and they are just straight to the point.
Sometimes I miss the old internet and web pages.
It was such an exciting time. Being an awkward teen back then the internet was a great place for me to socialize and meet new people. There was nothing better than seeing my hit counter number go up showing that people were visiting the website I made.
Now you're making me nostalgic for Myspace
A collection of free-to-use photography:
http://www.burningwell.org/
They’re even tagged!
The “bird” tag contains almost exclusively seagulls and chickens. Not a birdwatcher, I suppose.
idk what i got... wtf is this? http://www.silkentent.com/gus1911/RonPond.htm
This is what the internet used to be like. You'd have a very simple webpage/website set up dedicated to a hobby or something personal that might interest you and put it out there for people to come across and read. I really miss this era of the internet.
It’s like Journey to the Microcosmos, minus a budget.
Can a Human See a Single Photon?
https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/see_a_photon.html
The first hit was a txt page with a list of TEXT emoji and explanations... I should had seen that page 20 years ago and sent it to my dad.
…emoticons?
Damn you're right. I know there was another term but it was late and it has been too long
I got imitationpickles.org and it wasn't available lol
I got transformers gore
https://emailmyheart.neocities.org
This looks like a 15 year old girl's personal Backstreet Boys shrine website from 1997 and it's amazing
Eta: And this is where incels evolved from http://theabsolute.net/minefield/
I took the love match quiz and got Howie.
oh my gosh, the first one uSeS tHeSe CaPs unironically. Never thought I'd see the day, what a treasure
reminds me of that site? app? that would send you to a random website. that's how i stumbled upon reddit. oh yeah... it was called stumbleupon.
haha cool i got this site. https://sadgrl.online/cyberspace/internet-manifesto
I love the design
Stardates in Star Trek FAQ
http://gunsandsand.com/ There sure is a niche for everything...
https://geocities.restorativland.org/Area51/Dreamworld/2779/
Damn.
I wonder if all the Geocities sites are still up. I tried searching for the one I made when I was about 16. I called it Eric’s World. Cringe I know but still would be neat to see it at 45.
A site "Last revised: August 16, 1995" that's still intact and accessible. Looks like something straight out of geocities http://www.fluffy.com/fluffy/Fluffyhome.html
Wonder what Cathy or her sons are doing nowadays
Anyone want a game of dots and boxes? https://mathworld.wolfram.com/DotsandBoxes.html
"Secure site not available"
http://richfiles.solarbotics.net/SunbirdChair.html
This guys chair is fucking legendary.
First link I got was this, very interesting: https://red-coral.net/Amer.html
This is very cool! I bookmarked to read more later.
http://www.vipleo.com/pages/article5_eng.html
dark web 1.0 give me the forbidden catto
The connection to www.sugarglider.com is not secure You are seeing this warning because this site does not support HTTPS. Learn more
until just a few years ago many small sites were not https capable because globally trusted SSL/TLS certifcates were expensive and difficult to get. the amazing people at LetsEncrypt worked hard to fix this, however many ancient sites have not been updated to take advantage of easy https access.
the danger of visiting a http-only site is real (man-in-the-middle content injection and private information compromise), but likely not much more than actualy visiting the site wth https. an http-only site is possibly indicative of an unmaintained server and therefore a server that could be previously compromised and serving malicious content. of course, the same applies to an https server, but my guard is always up on an http only connection. obviously I would not pass sensitive information across an http-only connection.
use precautions (e.g. javascript off) when hitting random servers if you do decide to click links.
It just gave me https://www.old-games.com/
Which is probably the coolest website.
Nice.... It's got my favourite game from my childhood - Rick Dangerous
Wow! Back to the 90/00's
http://www.etfriends.com/ Exactly how I expected something like "ET-Friends" to look like.
There's content on there from 2020! Good to see that HTML template they bought 25 years ago is still going strong.
I got http://youma.demonek.com/ and I wonder how he's holding up
http://tchsyearbooks.com/
Scans of a high schools year books from the past century.
No spring break in 1909. What a ripoff.
I decided to look up a little history: https://history-computer.com/web-1-0/
Many new uses for bananas. http://banana.fws1.com/banana.htm
This is wild: http://cgim.org/thegarfields/garfieldfamily/ireland98/
A man ahead of his time... Some New Uses For Bananas http://banana.fws1.com/banana.htm
This is cool! I landed on an old Doom WAD review page.
This is wild: http://cgim.org/thegarfields/garfieldfamily/ireland98/
Wow Berkshire Hathaway has the most geocities webpage, still
After few attempts I got: http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/
Got an interesting page on the security of the world wide web.
The link I got was http://pages.swcp.com/~mccurley/danger/mailbomb.html
Which as discovered by clicking "go back to previous page" as well as context on the page was that it was a redirect from all of the links on this page: http://pages.swcp.com/~mccurley/danger/danger.html that were things like "click here to (do x bad thing) to your machine"
This is gold
Found Hank Shrader’s favorite site http://www.tigerminerals.com/
https://hpmuseum.org/srinst.htm
The Museum of HP Calculators
http://www.shira.net/sitemap.htm
A website about belly dancing. And it was last updated in 2020!
This is amazing
Got frenchpastrychef.com
Edit: Tried again and got a quick glimpse of an old geocities page before I got a popup that told me my iphone was infected. Lol
Oh cool. It sent me to, uh, a furry website.
https://yerf.metafur.org/
net::ERR_CLEARTEXT_NOT_PERMITTED
Crack in the Box! Yeah it's about crack. https://www.crackinthebox.com
Oh this is fun. http://inthe80s.com/
"Clean Bible jokes, puns, and trivia"
https://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/trivia.htm
The Web 1.0 is a lot like the Gemini protocol but older imo.
Absolutely fascinating. Horrifying in a way, but fascinating!
Does anyone know how do I make a shortcut to this on an Android phone?
OP, thank you very much for this. You've made my day.
Got redirected to https://www.operating-system.org/ , which looks web 2.0 rather than 1.0... And seems like the kind of site that I actually want to read, nonetheless
That is 1.0, pure html but just well constructed.
Feels weirdly nostalgic even though I wasn't there during web 1.0.
How does it find "web 1.0" sites? Does it just crawl sites and sort out the ones that don't use javascript or inline style tags? What rules does it use?
Its a seach engine: https://wiby.me/about/ Github: https://github.com/wibyweb/wiby/tree/main