Ancient Abandoned Websites That Still Work

http://mentalfloss.com/article/53792/17-ancient-abandoned-websites-still-work

by jamesbritt • 13 years ago

80 37 13 years ago

Get ready for these to be deleted too! :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6672029 -> http://nypost.com/2013/11/05/microsoft-com-is-stuck-in-the-1... -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6681746

jamesbritt• 13 years ago

I hope not. Seems silly.

CoolGuySteve• 13 years ago

Zombo.com's parody is strangely timeless.

huskyr• 13 years ago

If you don't want to run Flash:

http://html5zombo.com/

salient• 13 years ago

Well this one had a nice story on it:

http://toastytech.com/evil/ieisevilstory.html

ghc• 13 years ago

Web Browsers really make poor client application runtimes for all but the most basic of things.

Little did he know that we'd have Microsoft to thank for the innovation (XMLHttpRequest) that would eventually bring the era of desktop software to a close.

Zancarius2• 13 years ago

I also found this part amusing:

Somewhere around this point, people began spewing mindless drivel about how browsers would somehow magically replace operating systems eventually, and how in the future all applications would be "web based". This, of course, got Microsoft's attention.

Maybe we haven't gotten there completely yet, but holy cow. WebGL, more web-based applications than you can shake a stick at, and OS emulation in-browser. I think it's close. :)

One person's future is another person's mindless drivel, I guess.

Edit: Oh gosh, it's still being updated.

http://toastytech.com/evil/rants.html

sliverstorm• 13 years ago

I know most people are psyched about the end of desktop software, but personally I can't stand apps that don't belong in the browser, being ported to run in the browser.

betterunix• 13 years ago

Translation: we can thank Microsoft for creating a world where you need to run whatever arbitrary software some website sent you just so that you can click on some underlined text and go to a different website.

(Also the fact that at least half the websites I see these days manage to break basic browser features like "Back," "Forward," "Bookmarks," etc.)

cclogg• 13 years ago

It would be really funny if at the end, Craigslist was there.

(in terms of looks)

code_duck• 13 years ago

I actually thought I was seeing Craigslist when Strawberry Pop-Tart Blowtorches came up.

alextingle• 13 years ago

I think I've got one like that, still hiding on my web-server somewhere.

sebcat• 13 years ago

Another one that's quite bone chilling is http://www.heavensgate.com/

TazeTSchnitzel• 13 years ago

I suspect that the ISP deliberately keeps it up for historical reasons.

dexen• 13 years ago

One of my faves: Acme Klein Bottles: http://kleinbottle.com/ , a novelty glassware shop ran by astronomer, author and glass blower Cliff Stoll. They sell hats and Moebius scarves just as well :-)

Despite the looks, the website is very much active and grows over time.

Kliment• 13 years ago

Back when I was at school we sourced a bottle from there for a teacher.

CliffStoll• 13 years ago

Yep, same guy (my first time posting to Ycombinator - smiles to all!).

To my amazement, people still want Klein bottles (in 1995, my wife told me that nobody would buy these things) For the past five or ten years, I update m'website mainly to add content.

Someday I'll drag its code into the 21st century - remove the old cruft and maybe even use css. But flash just tires my eyes.

As my friends (online and off) can attest, I make Klein bottles mainly for fun. It's a zero-volume home business, small enough to be run from one room; the warehouse occupies the crawlspace under our house.

Of course, the best part of Acme Klein Bottles is meeting people: via email, occasional visits, talks at schools & math colloquia, and chattering about physics & LTE & coding with friends at my day-job (Hi Newfield People!). Which is to say, it'll be a while before I recast my kleinbottle website - I'm having too much fun doing other things.

petercooper2• 13 years ago

One of my favorites was the set of galleries Microsoft put together in 2007 to show off CSS in its infancy: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/css/gallery/entrance.htm .. http://www.microsoft.com/typography/css/gallery/4.htm etc.

Lagged2Death• 13 years ago

1997, even.

Some (most?) of the samples in there work in IE11 but not in FF25. Some of them don't even work correctly in IE11. That's a taste of the good old days, right there.

petercooper2• 13 years ago

Oopsie, yeah. In fact, I just noticed one of them is even 1996! :)

zenojevski• 13 years ago

The prototypal CSS zen garden: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/css/gallery/extract1.htm

Dogamondo• 13 years ago

Oh my, the .htm extension visible in the address bar... The nostalgia kicks in!

aestra• 13 years ago

If you want to see some horrible UI designs in 2000 this site has not been updated since then.

http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/index.php?file=shame.htm&mode=or...

EDIT: MY mistake. Apparently this is a mirror of the original.

qwerta• 13 years ago

http://www.google.com has not changed much since 1999.

Here is old version: https://web.archive.org/web/19991129021746/http://www13.goog...

mdturnerphys• 13 years ago

The size has increased by over an order of magnitude. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4647834

bowlofpetunias• 13 years ago

My 1995 "homepage" is still online. I haven't had access to it since '96, and the company that hosted it seized to exist round the turn of the century.

I have no idea where exactly it is, and why on earth it is still online, but I'm fully expecting to celebrate it's 20 year anniversary soon.

aviraldg• 13 years ago

ceased

hippich• 13 years ago

URL?

bane• 13 years ago

There's absolutely nothing wrong with websites that use basic HTML and styling from 199x. If anybody remembers, the power of the web is that it democratizes publishing so anybody can have a global presence. Putting hosting, styling and development requirements on that are simply barriers that fewer and fewer people can cross.

Keeping things simple, even if they aren't the latest js framework running on the latest hosting backend is actually totally fine.

bfe• 13 years ago

The "Welcome to Netscape" page (http://home.mcom.com/home/welcome.html) also still has working links to "What's New" on the Internet from June 1993 through October 1994:

http://home.mcom.com/home/whats-new.html

... and a page on the team:

http://mosaic.mcom.com/highres/bios.html

riffraff• 13 years ago

http://www.timecube.com/ is present on the internet archive since 1998, but I think it's been out there from before.

mynameishere• 13 years ago

I've actually been to the dole/kemp website because I thought it was hilarious that he closed his presidential debate with a mention of it. Yeah, Bob, the "Young people of America" are going to go to your webpage in droves. Kodos had a better chance.

(Penultimate sentence) http://www.debates.org/index.php?page=october-6-1996-debate-...

jason_wang• 13 years ago

One of the first sites I created with a friend in junior high for the ThinkQuest competition: http://library.thinkquest.org/12632/intromap1.html

Be prepared to be amazed by the animated gifs, HTML maps and statements like "this site is best viewed in Netscape 3.0"

Ancient Abandoned Websites That Still Work

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