Pawb.Social Reports @transparency

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vga256back in the early and mid-90s, getting on the net meant you were a university student, or had corporate access through a big company. getting online wasn't easy.worse, even if you had a dialup number and login, there was no such thing as a tcp/ip stack built-in to Windows 3.1. even if you *did* have a winsock stack, you'd still need a file downloading protocol, gopher client, world wide web client, ftp client, email client. just getting your machine off the ground was nearly impossible unless you could grab these from a local BBSto make things simpler, universities began offering dial-up internet software packages to their students and staff.in 1994, my mom was an undergrad student at the University of Alberta. our family had just bought an IBM PS/1 with a 2400 baud modem, and i was abusing the hell out of our single phone line at night visiting local BBSes.she somehow found out that the university was selling internet dial-up software for $10 to students, and brought home the diskette pack with her. along with a USR Sportster 14.4k modem, she gave me the install diskettes as a valentine's day gift.it had a slick setup program that enabled SLIP using Trumpet Winsock, and provided a local (free!) dial-up number for access.after 25 years, i finally tracked down a few versions of those diskettes. i've imaged them and uploaded them all to IA.the first version of the dial-up package in 1994 was called WinSLIP. it had no PPP support yet, but contained some really cool shareware internet utilities like HGopher and NCSA Mosaic. this would have been the earliest programs offered for Windows 3.1WinSLIP/MSKermit 1994/95: <a href="https://archive.org/details/ua_winslip" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/ua_winslip</a>The second version of the software was renamed to NetSurf. It stripped out most of the obscure shareware sadly, and replaced them with Netscape 2 and Eudora Light. The new version of Trumpet Winsock offered PPP which was a huge improvement:NetSurf 1996/97: <a href="https://archive.org/details/ua_netsurf_96" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/ua_netsurf_96</a>Now well into the Windows 95 era, the 1997/98 software was shipped on a CD with a hilarious "multimedia" installer/help program designed in Macromedia Director:NetSurf 1997/98: <a href="https://archive.org/details/netsurf-97-starter-kit" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/netsurf-97-starter-kit</a>I hope this brings back some memories for fellow U of A alumni :)<a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/softwarePreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#softwarePreservation</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/webPreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#webPreservation</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/win31" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#win31</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/worldWideWeb" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#worldWideWeb</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/yeg" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#yeg</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/bbs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#bbs</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/alberta" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#alberta</a>

vga256there is something wonderfully y2k about this Yahoo! branded rubiks cube i found in a thrift store years agolike a pure expression of the unbridled hope for the millennium and shareholders’ dreams encased in plastic<a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/y2k" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#y2k</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/webPreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#webPreservation</a>

vga256⚰️ 🥲<a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/indiegamedev" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#indiegamedev</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/worldWideWeb" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#worldWideWeb</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/webPreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#webPreservation</a>

vga256in february 2000, Be announced it was releasing its BeOS operating system for free.here is the website around the free launch. i sure do miss that swoopy web design aesthetic with handcrafted nav icons and lighting effects.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20000815093906/http://www.be.com/products/freebeos/beosspecs.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20000815093906/http://www.be.com/products/freebeos/beosspecs.html</a><a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/worldWideWeb" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#worldWideWeb</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/webPreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#webPreservation</a>

vga256good news: Web Wise Seniors - E-Mail Part 2 - Advanced Techniques is now online for your perusalthanks Stephen for your knockout lectures on Windows XP and Outlook Express 😻 <a href="https://youtu.be/0iXpwy__h50" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/0iXpwy__h50</a><a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/filmPreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#filmPreservation</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/webPreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#webPreservation</a>

vga256i've noticed in recent years that the laudable return to personal homepages has generally brought with it a very specific re-imagining of 1990s web design - usually lo-fi 1994 html-only and neon cyberpunkish affairs with loud animated gifs. lost in that specific imaginary are 1996-1997 corporate designs that brought a slightly more conservative aesthetic that nonetheless remained playful.if you played Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb, Dinotopia, or Faery Tale Adventure 2 you would remember The Dreamers Guild. this is their corporate site still live and maintained by joe pearce and brad schenck.<a href="https://inherittheearth.net/dgi/indexnf.htm" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://inherittheearth.net/dgi/indexnf.htm</a><a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/webHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#webHistory</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/worldwideWeb" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#worldwideWeb</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/webPreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#webPreservation</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/gameHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gameHistory</a>

vga256thanks to <a href="https://social.mossrc.me/users/MossRC" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@MossRC</a>’s exceptional book Shareware Heroes, TIL that TUCOWS stood for The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software. <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/webPreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#webPreservation</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/worldWideWeb" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#worldWideWeb</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/retroComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#retroComputing</a>

vga256one of the best parts of irc in the 1990s was that it exposed your ip/domain when joining a channel, so everyone could see where you hailed from. i loved looking up the ISPs of the folks who joined, often finding uniquely weird local ISPsif you were in BC, Quebec or Ontario in the 1990s on 56k dialup, it's very likely that you'd join with a .sympatico.ca FQDNthis is Sympatico's home page in 1998, in english (february) and française (july)only a year later, sans serif fonts would replace times new roman and courier, animated gifs would be removed, and corporate web sites like these would begin to take on a stale design stormcrowing the sterile web aesthetic of today<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/19980704132623/http://www2.sympatico.ca/accueil" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/19980704132623/http://www2.sympatico.ca/accueil</a><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/19980213121627/http://www1.sympatico.ca/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/19980213121627/http://www1.sympatico.ca/</a><a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/internetHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#internetHistory</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/webPreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#webPreservation</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/1990s" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#1990s</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/canada" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#canada</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/bc" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#bc</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/ontario" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#ontario</a>

vga256in case you were curious about what other webpage hyperlinks came pre-bookmarked with NCSA Mosaic 2.0 alpha, distributed at my local university in the WinSLIP package - a popular freeware/shareware internet connection kit used in many north american universities.<a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/webPreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#webPreservation</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/worldWideWeb" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#worldWideWeb</a>

vga256buried in my 30 year old copy of NSCA Mosaic alpha was a bookmarked hyperlink to a university of cambridge (uk) live webcam of a coffee pot, brewing in the Trojan Room computing labwhile live coffee/lab cams were not uncommon in the mid 90s, this one is fascinating for a few reasons:- it was up and running in 1991, predating the graphical world wide web by a few years - it ran over the MSNL protocol using a telecom network standard called ATM, which was a competitor to ethernet - an entire machine was dedicated to grabbing a frame from the camera, compressing it, and uploading to the web server: an Acorn Archimedes 🔥 - the exact URL stored in Mosaic still resolves today, and the web page hasn't changed in 30 years<a href="https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/coffee.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/coffee.html</a>more history of the setup here: <a href="https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/qsf/coffee.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/qsf/coffee.html</a>more images of the sacred pot by <a href="https://mastodon.me.uk/@quentinsf" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@quentinsf</a> here: <a href="https://statusq.org/archives/2024/07/11/12127/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://statusq.org/archives/2024/07/11/12127/</a><a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/retroComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#retroComputing</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/worldWideWeb" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#worldWideWeb</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/webPreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#webPreservation</a>

vga256thanks to a frame grab from doug block's Home Page documentary, i was able to dredge up this ultra-90s web site that is completely undocumented on the webit appears that Apple once built/hosted a Mission Impossible promo site for the film for its 1996 release. it appears to be some kind of hypertext adventure game.sadly, WBM didn't archive anything past the splash page. but at least the frame grab from the movie shows the login page<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/19961111063127/http://mission.apple.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/19961111063127/http://mission.apple.com/</a><a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/webPreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#webPreservation</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/1990s" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#1990s</a>

vga256a perfect web page, circa 1997: Sunny's Ultima Webpagestill live on his university webspace after 27 years <a href="http://www.fim.uni-linz.ac.at/staff/sonntag/ultima.htm" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">http://www.fim.uni-linz.ac.at/staff/sonntag/ultima.htm</a><a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/worldWideWeb" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#worldWideWeb</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/webPreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#webPreservation</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/gamePreservation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gamePreservation</a> <a href="https://dialup.cafe/tags/archival" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#archival</a>

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