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Internet Archaeology

Last posted Feb 21, 2013 at 05:47AM EST. Added Feb 09, 2013 at 03:07PM EST
42 posts from 37 users

Ever accidentally find a website that hasn't been touched in ages? Web pages impeccably preserved from the pre-mySpace era?
Wayback Machine is pretty cool, but a lot of the older sites are very very broken. I'm talking sites that are still up. Just sitting there. Alone.

I call them "Ghost Towns".

Here's a few I found:

1 Saturday Morning c. 2001

Space Jam c. 1996

Anyone ever find any more? This is internet research at its best!

Last edited Feb 09, 2013 at 03:08PM EST

Personally, it bothers me when big companies do this to their products. Why make an entire new site to promote the cool, new Sponge Bob special when you already have a perfectly good Nick.com? Especially when they make tons of new sites for every little thing. Five different sites, each hyping up one new addition to Lucky Charms, is kind of overkill and a tad lazy, too.

Damn, I was totally gonna post that Spacejam website, but the OP beat me to it!
That's basically the only one I know. I'm actually pretty young to the Internet, since I was only born in '96. Still, I faintly remember some random game websites kids would play around with in class back in Elementary School.

Wish I could remember what any of them were called.

However, I can contribute with one thing: the TV Tropes page on Geocities has a link to a massive online archive of different sites within the domain, a glorious treasure trove for any adventurous types to dig through.

It's a surreal feeling to read through sites that are older than I am, hehe.

I remember some classic websites like JoeCartoon, killfrog, Stick Death, Boneland, Homestar Runner, America Online, etc.. Those were the good times.

Gabenus Trollucus wrote:

I remember some classic websites like JoeCartoon, killfrog, Stick Death, Boneland, Homestar Runner, America Online, etc.. Those were the good times.

Homestar Runner is still up, and looks relatively modern. I guess there's still enough interest in Strong Bad and his antics

Something definitely worth checking out, especially for fellow Earthbound fans, is the archive of past Starmen.net iterations available on their "Stonehenge" database, most interestingly the first ever post (back in 1999) on what is now the most popular, and still frequently visited Earthbound fan community on the Internet. While it's not still in active use, and has definitely undergone massive changes into its current form, it's an interesting tidbit for any Internet antiquarian.

Last edited Feb 11, 2013 at 02:13AM EST

@Sioraf as Na Cillini: oh, the graphics! :D

Here's another classic, Hyperchat's State of Insanity

It's an old role-playing chat site from the tail end of the 90s. The copyright goes up to 2008, but I don't think the graphics have seen an update in at least 15 years.

Last edited Feb 11, 2013 at 11:53AM EST

Would you consider Maddox's website as part of this? On the one hand he does update it somewhat regularly. On the other it was created back in that era and he has very intentionally not upgraded it since.

The best page of the universe never changed the original design, right?
One day I read an article in a newspaper about the first photo in the internet (spanish): http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1489840-la-historia-detras-de-la-primera-foto-de-la-webarieltorres
One of the links brought me to this site: http://venus.web.cern.ch/VENUS/
The guy that uploaded the first photo in the internet worked in that project. And the page is untouched since 1999.

Axel wrote:

The best page of the universe never changed the original design, right?
One day I read an article in a newspaper about the first photo in the internet (spanish): http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1489840-la-historia-detras-de-la-primera-foto-de-la-webarieltorres
One of the links brought me to this site: http://venus.web.cern.ch/VENUS/
The guy that uploaded the first photo in the internet worked in that project. And the page is untouched since 1999.

This one did change, but it was the first one in the web: http://info.cern.ch/

Googling around, i found a few ancient 'shrine' fandom webpages that are still up there. When I was watching Dragonball Z and Pokemon as a kid, I visited some of these sites to learn more about anime. Before the advent of Wikipedia or Youtube, these sites were some of the best sources on the internet to find information, images, music and video from anime and video games.

If you want an insight into anime or game fandom in the late 90's – early 00's or if you'd like a nostalgia trip, have a look at these:

http://theanimeshrine.8m.com/index2.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/il2/FFVII/index.html
http://www.angelfire.com/anime4/msfgod/
http://www.angelfire.com/moon/ptilol/
http://www.angelfire.com/de/pokemonmadness/

If you look around on google, surprisingly there's still a lot of these around, with some not updated since 1999.

Last edited Feb 13, 2013 at 01:48AM EST

swiley1983 wrote:

Dole-Kemp '96

Quote on the top of their news page:
"There's no doubt we'll look back at Web sites today and basically say … that they were quite primitive. They don't customize what they present to the viewers' interests. They don't remember: Have you been there before? What have you seen before? And that's got to change." -- Bill Gates, MSNBC, July 15, 1996

Golden.

Skeletor-sm

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