5 ms·

Oh, top nostalgia from the 1990s/2000s online. These buttons meant a lot to me. I think I said this on some of my old comments, but I learnt programming because

by 101008 4y ago

Oh, top nostalgia from the 1990s/2000s online. These buttons meant a lot to me. I think I said this on some of my old comments, but I learnt programming because I built a very popular website about a topic/fandom that I was very into back then. There were a lot of websites about that, but only a few were really popular. The structure was very basic: header, left sidebar with links, centered content, and right sidebar with small chatbox, polls, random quotes, and affiliates. The affiliates was simply that: a link to another website in exchange of a link to your website. They started using text links but they usually evolved to 88x31 buttons, first simply JPG then animated GIFs. Being in the affiliates section of the top websites (again, only for this subject) was the best. I remember spent hours and hours (translated into days adn weeks) designing my buttons in MS Paint (yeah, pixel by pixel) so I could convince the webmaster of the popular website to include mine, because a lot of the time they decided based n the button and not the website itself. Anyway, sorry for the long rant (maybe younger people will learn something today), but as a lot of people I miss the old internet and I could talk hours about this!

matsemann 4y ago
Hah, same. Here the topic was Harry Potter. I had learned basic html (no css, using <font color= or imagemaps liberally), and wanted to create a school others could "attend". A copy of other sites. You could do "assignments" and earn your house points etc. But since I only knew html, how you did it was to fill in my form, which then submitted to some cgi tool online and sent me an email. Then I would manually edit my html to reflect new stats, and upload it over ftp. Luckily I had only like two close friends enrolled at that school!
- 101008 4y ago
  Ha, my topic was Harry Potter as well! And yes, doing an online interactive Hogwarts was the dream back then (and processing manually cgi forms was the only way we kids were able to do it). Finally almost 20 years later we'll get Hogwarts Legacy...
  - hparadiz 4y ago
    For me it was Pokemon https://web.archive.org/web/20010219045610/http://www.pichusnest.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20010219045610/http://www.pichus...
    - chrisco255 4y ago
      I did a general Nintendo fan/news site: https://web.archive.org/web/20010202210400/http://www.thebign.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20010202210400/http://www.thebig...
  - noelrock 4y ago
    Ha, both the original post and the parent comment made me think of Harry Potter - I wonder if I knew either of you! The world is very small.
LanceH 4y ago
> Oh, top nostalgia from the 1990s/2000s online. A nice blend of nostalgia and triggering, "Get RealPlayer Now!".
dr_kiszonka 4y ago
Since you "could talk hours about this," :) do you know what is the story behind the red "Now! writing on many buttons from that era?
- LocalH 4y ago
  I feel like that was based off "Netscape Now!" https://sillydog.org/netscape/now.html https://sillydog.org/netscape/now.html
  - marban 4y ago
    Correct
  - dr_kiszonka 4y ago
    Thanks!
highwaylights 4y ago
> I miss the old internet You and me both. It’s a tangent, but I remember watching The Matrix when it first came out and in that scene where Smith is looking out the window telling Neo that they choose that current timeframe for the simulation as it was humanity at it’s peak, I thought it was a little ironic as clearly things were just getting exponentially better all the time. I mean, a lot of things have got better, but we lost a lot along the way too. The web certainly didn’t live up to its early potential (or more accurately, we just tossed it for something way inferior that was less hassle). I guess really it’s just surprising to look back at that scene and think there’s some truth in it.. especially given that now it’s 2022 and we’re all flying round Mars in our self-driving Jetson cars.
- berkes 4y ago
  > The web certainly didn’t live up to its early potential Oh, but it could have been far, far worse. We almost lost the web to Adobe/Macromedia/Flash. And then almost again to activeX. At least we still have the open, accessible, extensible web standards. Only that the top-layer: the applications and sites built have been embraced by a few monopolies. I'm rooting for WASM (because of my dislike for JS) but I'm also cautious for one of the FAANG taking wasm and re-trying the old flash/activeX trick again, but now with a "only runs on android" or "requires azure certification" angle via WASM.
  - teddyh 4y ago
    What will probably happen is the even older “Best viewed on Google Chrome” gambit. I.e. web sites will technically all be viewable with what are technically open standards, but they will all change so fast, and there will be so many of them, so that the only browser anybody can realistically use is Google Chrome. And if a network can be only accessed with the product from one company, then that company controls that network.
    - highwaylights 4y ago
      I thought this had already happened. WebKit (and it’s forks) has eaten almost all the things already hasn’t it? (FireFox stands as a lone exception to this but I get the impression, probably wrongly, that Mozilla is always a couple of dollars from bankruptcy).

by 101008 4y ago

matsemann 4y ago

Hah, same. Here the topic was Harry Potter. I had learned basic html (no css, using <font color= or imagemaps liberally), and wanted to create a school others could "attend". A copy of other sites. You could do "assignments" and earn your house points etc. But since I only knew html, how you did it was to fill in my form, which then submitted to some cgi tool online and sent me an email. Then I would manually edit my html to reflect new stats, and upload it over ftp. Luckily I had only like two close friends enrolled at that school!

101008 4y ago
Ha, my topic was Harry Potter as well! And yes, doing an online interactive Hogwarts was the dream back then (and processing manually cgi forms was the only way we kids were able to do it). Finally almost 20 years later we'll get Hogwarts Legacy...
- hparadiz 4y ago
  For me it was Pokemon https://web.archive.org/web/20010219045610/http://www.pichusnest.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20010219045610/http://www.pichus...
  - chrisco255 4y ago
    I did a general Nintendo fan/news site: https://web.archive.org/web/20010202210400/http://www.thebign.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20010202210400/http://www.thebig...
- noelrock 4y ago
  Ha, both the original post and the parent comment made me think of Harry Potter - I wonder if I knew either of you! The world is very small.

LanceH 4y ago

> Oh, top nostalgia from the 1990s/2000s online. A nice blend of nostalgia and triggering, "Get RealPlayer Now!".

dr_kiszonka 4y ago

Since you "could talk hours about this," :) do you know what is the story behind the red "Now! writing on many buttons from that era?

LocalH 4y ago
I feel like that was based off "Netscape Now!" https://sillydog.org/netscape/now.html https://sillydog.org/netscape/now.html
- marban 4y ago
  Correct
- dr_kiszonka 4y ago
  Thanks!

highwaylights 4y ago

> I miss the old internet You and me both. It’s a tangent, but I remember watching The Matrix when it first came out and in that scene where Smith is looking out the window telling Neo that they choose that current timeframe for the simulation as it was humanity at it’s peak, I thought it was a little ironic as clearly things were just getting exponentially better all the time. I mean, a lot of things have got better, but we lost a lot along the way too. The web certainly didn’t live up to its early potential (or more accurately, we just tossed it for something way inferior that was less hassle). I guess really it’s just surprising to look back at that scene and think there’s some truth in it.. especially given that now it’s 2022 and we’re all flying round Mars in our self-driving Jetson cars.

berkes 4y ago
> The web certainly didn’t live up to its early potential Oh, but it could have been far, far worse. We almost lost the web to Adobe/Macromedia/Flash. And then almost again to activeX. At least we still have the open, accessible, extensible web standards. Only that the top-layer: the applications and sites built have been embraced by a few monopolies. I'm rooting for WASM (because of my dislike for JS) but I'm also cautious for one of the FAANG taking wasm and re-trying the old flash/activeX trick again, but now with a "only runs on android" or "requires azure certification" angle via WASM.
- teddyh 4y ago
  What will probably happen is the even older “Best viewed on Google Chrome” gambit. I.e. web sites will technically all be viewable with what are technically open standards, but they will all change so fast, and there will be so many of them, so that the only browser anybody can realistically use is Google Chrome. And if a network can be only accessed with the product from one company, then that company controls that network.
  - highwaylights 4y ago
    I thought this had already happened. WebKit (and it’s forks) has eaten almost all the things already hasn’t it? (FireFox stands as a lone exception to this but I get the impression, probably wrongly, that Mozilla is always a couple of dollars from bankruptcy).