A curated list of web sites of the old-school: mostly non-commercial and all hand-made, survivals of the Web As It Once Was. And sites that preserve the spirit of it.
The ten most recent additions are available in a handy RSS format!
28 sites tagged with computers. [Show all sites]
MEME
Archives of a newsletter about then-current developments in cyberspace, published by David Solomon Bennahum between 1995 and 1998. A remarkable time capsule of that transfomative moment in computing.
date added: 2024-04-07
tags: computers web networks
David L. Mills, PhD, Professor
The faculty page of David L. Mills, who among other things invented the Network Time Protocol (NTP). One of the best examples of the 'faculty page' genre I have yet seen. Old school, informative and quirky, with many references to Pogo, the old Walt Kelly comic strip. Sadly, David Mills passed away last week.
date added: 2024-01-24
tags: computers dec
mdfs.net
"Software and documentation covering such subjects as Acorn BBCs, Econet and networking, SJ Research Fileservers, Z80, 6502, ARM and PDP-11 code, C programming, Co-processors and Tube systems, Harston Advanced Disk Filing System, BBC Public Domain, CP/M."
date added: 2023-05-14
tags: computers documentation cpm
MCbx Old Computer Collection
"Here you will find information about old computers, their parts and peripherals. The main objective of this site is to provide information not only about technical specifications of old computers, but also instructions to make an old computer running again as well as how to use the old computers (retrocomputing) and its basic software."
date added: 2023-04-15
tags: computers history retro
Documenting Digital
A brief hypertext history of Digital Equipment Corporation, presenting multiple timelines tracing the development of its various products and services. Appears to date from 1998 and was originally distributed on CD ROM, from what I can glean from the legal notice. Now resident on Gordon Bell's personal site.
date added: 2023-02-05
tags: dec history computers
Collection of Slide Rule replicas
A fine collection of carefully hand-crafted slide rule simulators/emulators, implemented in javascript by Dr. Robert Wolf.
date added: 2023-01-30
tags: sliderules computers
Sensitive Research (SR-IX)
Tom Jennings is an artist and the creator of FidoNet. This is his website. Lots of great tech, computing, and music history here.
date added: 2022-07-02
tags: technology computers history music electronics art
Douglas W. Jones
Website of Dr. Douglas W. Jones, Associate Professor Emeritus from the University of Iowa Department of Computer Science. Lots of interesting information on historical computing (DEC PDP-8, PLATO, etc) and related topics.
date added: 2022-05-18
tags: computers history dec plato
Floodgap
Cameron Kaiser's "personal repository for information technology research, historical computing research, and open source software", among many other things. A unique and valuable resource!
date added: 2022-05-16
tags: computers retro gopher history biology art commodore
Steve's Old Computer Museum
Lots of information about various makes and models of micro-computers manufactured between 1970 and 1993, from the personal collection of Steven Stengal. Handy timeline view!
date added: 2022-05-15
tags: computers history retro
Tricks of the Internet Gurus
"An Internet guru knows that the Internet only works due to information sharing that is mostly for free. The guru, therefore, must give something back to the Internet to improve the network. It might be a piece of software, documentation, frequently answering posts on Usenet constructively, or even just having a useful Gopher or Web server." Yes, this is a book about the Internet written in 1994.
date added: 2022-05-12
tags: computers internet history documentation
Gaby's Homepage for CP/M and Computer History
Lots to do with everybody's favourite microcomputer operating system, as well as Win 3.1 and MS DOS. Software, documentation, history and more!
date added: 2022-05-07
tags: computers history documentation cpm
Chez Inwap
Cat pictures, PDP-10 info, and probably everything you'd want to know about ReBoot, the 1990s computer animated television show.
date added: 2022-04-19
tags: cats tv computers homepages
Starring the Computer
Computers in movies and television. Ever wonder what computer they used in "Three Days of the Condor"? Here's where you find out.
date added: 2022-04-18
tags: computers film tv
VT100.net
"This site is dedicated to the range of video terminals produced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1970 to 1995."
date added: 2022-04-16
tags: computers history documentation dec
https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/
Jamie Zawinski's mid-90s proto-blog
date added: 2022-04-1
tags: art music computers blog
Michigan Terminal System
Thirty year history of a computer operating system developed at the University of Michigan and used by many other universities, including the University of British Columbia. Nice old-school minimalist web design.
date added: 2022-03-18
tags: computers history programming
Jargon File Text Archive
Most versions of the storied Jargon File (a hacker lexicon), dating back to 1976
date added: 2022-03-16
tags: history computers programming networks
Coping with Unix, a Survival Guide
"An electronic survival kit for coping with the complexities of a scientific computing project from start to finish under a Unix operating system." You might think Unix documentation dating from 1993 would be obsolete, but hey, Unix is timeless.
date added: 2022-03-14
tags: computers unix
Commodore Information Center
"This site provides links to other sites that support the classic Commodore 64 and 128 computers, and a collection of related articles from newsletters."
date added: 2022-03-07
tags: computers commodore history
mR_Slug's Warehouse
"A dumping ground for various old computer stuff" including a chip set encyclopedia, PC Specs year by year, hardware info. HTTPS? DNS? Who needs 'em.
date added: 2022-03-01
tags: computers documentation
http://www.devili.iki.fi/
Commodore service manuals, Luxor ABC800 home page, FTP site mirrors. Lots of interesting old software and documentation on a site that's been online since 1997.
date added: 2022-02-20
tags: computers software documentation commodore
Computers Are Bad
"COMPUTERS ARE BAD is a newsletter semi-regularly issued directly to your doorstep to enlighten you as to the ways that computers are bad and the many reasons why."
date added: 2022-02-18
tags: computers networks programming electronics radio infosec
Chris Siebenmann's home page
Chris Siebenmann is a Unix Herder who works at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. His blog mainly covers interesting topics in systems administration.
date added: 2022-02-14
tags: computers sysadmin blog
THE DECSYSTEM-20 at Columbia University (1977-1988)
A nontechnical reminiscence written in 1988 (on the occasion of unplugging Columbia University's last DECSYSTEM-20), with links to lots of great historical information about computing at Columbia. (update 2024-02-04: Looks like Columbia has taken down most of its historic computing material. I've posted an alternate link to the DECSYSTEM-20 article that's still up for now, but most links to supporting info are now broken. The essay was originally posted here: http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/dec20.html)
date added: 2022-01-08
tags: computers history dec
Online PDP-8 Home Page
This site is for people who wish to learn about the PDP-8 minicomputer and for current PDP-8 users to get more information on these machines.
date added: 2022-01-07
tags: computers history dec
Madrona Grove
Brent Hilpert's retro computing, radio & electronics projects. Amazing stuff. Lots of great documentation!
date added: 2022-01-05
tags: computers electronics radio retro
Duramecho's Miscellany
"A small but eclectic collection of miscellaneous information that might be of use or of interest to someone somewhere, possibly." Come for the info on C pointers, stay for the Morris dancing.
date added: 2022-01-03
tags: computers programming food dance art photography