Friday, January 1, 2021

Net.Weirdness: Online life and Pictures

How do you navigate the 'net? How was life on the web in 1995? Back then, you could actually claim to offer a guide to the internet and be fairly inclusive of everything out there.

airbrushed image of man in a business suit, surfing on a modem
Business class 'web surfing

Voices from the Net
E-mail
"Both a Net guide and a helpful commentary. Voices from the Net speaks to just about everyone who wants to learn more about Net life and culture."
Still online? No, but it's archived, thanks to one of the co-collaborators. And if you want a collection of stories from philosophers and rebels, historymakers and historians, Clay Shirky published such a book in 1995, celebrating cyberspace thinkers and writers.

Net Happenings
Mailing List
"Like one of those free papers that lists all the new events in your community. A good way to keep your head above water and get the current Net news.
Still online? No, but it's remembered in an archive of The Network Observer.

BBS List
FTP
"All the BBS lists in the world. Well, almost."
Still online? No, but it's mentioned in a list of 600+ BBS names and numbers that was posted to alt.bbs.lists in 1994.

Internet Info
FTP
"Virtual guides to Net life and living. From the more mainstream to the fringe, this site has just about all of 'em."
Still online? No, but the web version from 1998 has been captured by Archive.org! I'm particularly fond of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet, apparently from Sept. 1989!

Cool Stuff on the Internet
Web
"Links to the good stuff. Since it's on the World Wide Web, these links go to other links, which go to other links, and so on and so on ..."
Still online? No, and not archived, either, and I'm not even seeing it referenced in old pages or forum posts that are still indexed.

Nexus List
Mailing List and Web
"Nexus is a project to build local virtual communities around the globe linked via cyberspace. A great goal and a great bunch of people."
Still online? No, but mentioned briefly in a copy of Cyberpoet's Guide to Virtual Culture, between The Little Garden and WiReD. The last link in that list is UnderWorld Industry's website, which wasn't archived at its original location, but it's new home was captured by the Internet Archive, providing a snapshot of "The Web's Edge" in 1996.

Pictures

Pictures
FTP
"Loads of digitized pictures just sitting around waiting for you to snag 'em. Most of them are good old-fashioned copyright violations, so you should be careful about using them in your next big ad campaign."
Still online? YES! ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/pics is still online, and it has pics! There are a lot of directories, but some are pretty dull. For example, "music" only contains another folder, "organs," which includes four pictures of the Wicks pipe organ.

OTIS Art Gallery
Gopher, FTP and Web
"OTIS is the premier Internet art gallery. Thoughtful without being elitist and snotty, the OTIS archives hold some of the niftiest rasterbation (heavily tweaked digital art) you'll find in c-space."
Still online? No, but it's mentioned in a message exchanged about the Handshake project of 1993-1994.