Links
Contents
Videos I like
The Great 202 Jailbreak - Video from Computerphile with Professor Brailsford telling the story of how Bell Labs reverse engineered a Linotron 202 Typesetter in 1979.
THE INTERNET on April 4th, 1998 - A VHS screen recording from 1998 of someone browsing the web, chatting on IRC and listening to music on Windows 95.
AT&T Archives: The UNIX Operating System - A video created in 1982 at Bell Labs, where the developers of UNIX talk about the operating system and it’s benefits. This video is still a good introduction to Unix concepts.
1965: How DELIA DERBYSHIRE made the DOCTOR WHO theme I Tomorrow’s World I Music I BBC Archive - A video from 1965 of Delia Derbyshire at BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop explaining how they made electronic music.
What Is David Working on Today? 6/9/20 - Checking Stick - “Wood is such a blessing for humanity”.
Channels I like
Bernadette Banner - Bernadette is a dress historian and vlogger. Her videos focus on the history of clothes, fashion and sewing, mostly focusing on the Victorian era. She has a lot to say on the issues surrounding fast fashion and what we in modern times can learn from people’s relationship with their clothes in the past.
TheCottageFairy - Makes very pleasant relaxing videos from her country cottage. Great if you’re into slow living and/or the cottagecore aesthetic.
Mhara Starling - Great videos about Welsh Celtic Paganism and Welsh folklore.
Veronica Explains - Veronica creates informative and friendly videos about Linux and Computing in general. She’s a breath of fresh air in the Linux video creator space. (Youtube Link)
Ms Mad Lemon - Ms Mad Lemon creates videos about retro technology and electronics, mostly focusing on the Amiga. Her videos have a casual and positive vibe. Also features a lot of great videos about trackers and digital music creation.
Tech
Temp Mail - Gives you a temporary E-Mail inbox. Useful to sign up for sites with a throwaway account.
Kill the Newsletter! - Gives you an E-Mail inbox that can be viewed as an rss feed. Designed to convert E-Mail newsletters to rss.
Twitch Stream RSS Generator - Creates an rss feed of a Twitch channel.
Open RSS - A website that provides RSS feeds for sites that don’t provide their own. You can add ‘openrss.org’ to the beggining of a URL to get an RSS feed. They are adding support for sites on request. (More info on how this site works)
dlvr.it - Used for automating social media posts. Can be used with rss to push updates to a social media profile.
terminal.sexy - Design, edit and share terminal colour schemes.
DuckDuckGo - Designed to be a privacy respecting search engine. Has some very useful features. A great Google alternative.
Searx - Customizable and decentralised search engine. Can get results from multiple different engines.
Wiby - A search engine that tries to recapture the discoverability provided by the search engines of the early web by giving results to lesser known, less commercialised sites reminiscent of those you would find in the early days.
Youtube Region Restriction Checker - Enter a Youtube video url to see which countries the video is blocked in.
TWText - Can “unroll” Twitter threads, making them readable in an article-like format.
Invidious - Alternative Youtube front-end.
Idiotbox - Simple and minimal front-end to perform Youtube searches that’s JavaScript free and more compatible with older or more limited web browsers. (More info (Gopher link)).
Nitter - Alternative Twitter front-end. Lets you view Twitter profiles, tweets and searches. Doesn’t use JavaScript.
Archive.today - Create and search for archives of a web page.
Wayback Machine - Search for archives of webpages/sites.
TheOldNet.com - A better way of viewing vintage archived web pages especially on old machines, uses Wayback Machine but removes it’s JavaScript and overlays for better compatibility and a more authentic experience.
Greasy Fork - Find and upload user-scripts.
OpenUserJS - Find and upload user-scripts.
UserStyles.world - Find and upload user-styles.
Escargot - Unofficial server for MSN/Windows Live Messenger clients so they can be used again since the official servers were shut down.
Phoenix AIM - Unofficial server for AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) since the official servers were shut down.
WorldWideWeb Rebuild - A JavaScript rebuild of WorldWideWeb/Nexus, the first web browser (and editor) by Tim Berners-Lee.
JS Paint - Web-based JavaScript remake of classic MS Paint.
Nostalgia
Insitute for Y2K Aesthetics - A Tumblr blog with images showcasing design aesthetics from (or akin to) the late 90s and early 2000s.
Vintage UK Catalogue Pages - Twitter account that posts scans of pages from vintage UK retailer catalogues such as Argos.
Cameron’s World - Nostalgic site full of images, GIFs and text from various archived GeoCities sites.
/~duncjo01/archive - Archive of old wallpapers/backgrounds, fonts, clip art, themes, icons and more.
BlueMaxima’s Flashpoint - A Flash/Web game preservation project, an archive of playable Flash games as well as games for Java, Shockwave and others. (Read More)
OoCities - An archive of Geocities sites from before the shutdown.
GeoCities.ws - Another archive of old Geocities sites.
Escargot - Unofficial server for MSN/Windows Live Messenger clients so they can be used again since the official servers were shut down.
Phoenix AIM - Unofficial server for AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) since the official servers were shut down.
Old’aVista - A very cool search engine that gives you results of archives of old sites. A very cool and nostalgic experience if you want to re-experience the early web. As the name implies the site is styled after old AltaVista.
Theoldpurple.com - A homage/recreation of Purple.com, a website from 1994 which was sold to a mattress company in 2017. It’s literally just an empty page with a purple background, #7D26CD to be precise. Until 6 November 2006 the original site was #DD00FF. So uh… yeah.
404PageFound - A catalog of still online sites/pages unchanged from the early internet.
Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches - A page that investigates the incendiary potential of Pop-Tarts. Last updated in August 1994.
Miss Cat’s Academy - Vintage fan site for the 1998 British television series “The Worst Witch”, appears to have been last updated around 2003.
The Original Friends Site - Self proclaimed first website dedicated o the 1994 American sitcom “Friends”. It’s a fan site but apparently came online when the show first started airing, before any official site. The sites design hasn’t really been updated much since at least 1996 but the content surprisingly is still being updated every now and then (last updated July 18, 2019 as of writing).
Who is Doctor Who? - An old tie-in website for the 2005 revival of Doctor Who. In the very first episode of Series 1, after meeting the Doctor for the first time, Rose finds a conspiracy website about sightings of the Doctor by typing “doctor blue box” into a (fictional) search engine. This real website could be found by typing the same phrase into google or other search engines. To this day searching “doctor blue box” still brings up this website as the first result. However the website was last updated towards the end of Series 2 in 2006.
The Doctor Who Home Page - A Doctor Who fan site that dates back to 1993. It has not been updated substantially since around 2003, prior to the revival of TV Doctor Who in 2005, AKA The Wilderness Years so is very reflective of Doctor Who as it existed during that time.
Cyber-Rat.com - Website of the creator of Half-Life (and other Valve games) maps including the “Rats!” series of maps. Last updated in November of 2004.
LEGO STAR WARS TRILOGY - A web page featuring Lego Star Wars creations made in 1992, before the official Lego Star Wars sets were created. Creations use mostly unmodified parts available at the time. The page was last modified November 2000.
Logo Pops - Twitter account that shows examples of old outdated UK store branding still in use or exposed due to store closures.
Windows Tips and Tricks by Tiplord - Vintage website with lots of useful information for configuring Windows 95 and 98, surprisingly last modified in 2013.
Heaven’s Gate - (
Space Jam - Probably the most well known surviving vintage website. The promotional website for the 1996 movie “Space Jam”, still appears at it did in the 90’s.
International Genetics Technologies - Surviving viral marketing website for the 1997 Jurassic Park sequel “The Lost World: Jurassic Park”.
CNN - O.J. Simpson Trial - CNN’s page for news and information about the O.J. Simpson trial, last updated in June 1996.
Welcome to Netscape! - The original 1994 Netscape homepage.