The Wayback Machine Makes Time Travel Easy
Hop aboard the Nostalgia Express
Do you remember Rocky & Bullwinkle? If you do then you’ll remember the “Wayback Machine”. That was one of my favorite parts of the Rocky & Bullwinkle show – along with “Fractured Fairy Tales”.
If you’ve been on and around the Web for as long as we have, then you too have seen tremendous changes to the way the Web looks and works. Back in the mid-90a when we first laid eyes on the Internet, it was a far different place than it is today. Back then if someone asked what you did last night and you said “I surfed the web” – you were labeled a geek, a kook, or worse. The Internet was an oddity. And back then I don’t think even Darcy & I, who both loved the Internet the minute we first laid eyes on it, ever thought it would develop into what it is today. The Internet grew from an oddity to a necessity in less than twenty-five years.
For those of you, like us, who sometimes find yourself longing for the good old days of the web, there’s a website that can transport you back in time – back to the days when the web was a simpler place – a place where almost everything was free and the term “web designer” was used to describe spiders – the kind with eight legs.
Let’s go back 19 years and look at Cloudeight Stationery. Back in those days, our site was ranked in the top 1000 most popular sites. Here is what Cloudeight Stationery looked like on June 2, 2004.
If you go back farther than that you’ll get the “Netscape version” of our site no matter what browser you use. Back in those days, only Internet Explorer rendered our site and stationery correctly – but that was OK then, over 95% of everyone using Windows and browsing the Internet used Internet Explorer – there was no Firefox or Chrome.
How about Microsoft circa 1998?
Or Amazon in 1999?
How about Yahoo. Here’s Yahoo circa 1998.
And one of my favorite sites of all time – unfortunately long gone from the Web: DaveCentral.com – The first thing I’d do every morning is get up, go to DaveCentral and download all the new freeware he recommended for that day. Darcy used to laugh at the stuff I’d put on my computer. I ran into problems being so aggressive and installing new programs so prolifically, but I also discovered some really great programs too by trying Dave’s recommendations. RIP DaveCentral!
Here’s DaveCentral in 1999
Do have favorite sites that have faded away or sites that you once loved that have changed for the worse? Are you just curious about what the Web used to look like way back when?
Our site pick today The Internet Archive: Wayback Machine has over a 826 BILLION web pages archived and ready for your perusal.
Are you ready to hop in the Internet time machine and go back to another place and time? If you are, click here to visit The Internet Archive:Wayback Machine ….
Have fun!
Wow!!!! What memories!! It’s sad that today’s cartoons are nowhere close to being as good as Rocky and Bullwinkle, or Heckle and Jeckel the two magpies. How about Captain Video?? I could keep going. You triggered my brain and I can’t stop.