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!
32 sites tagged with history. [Show all sites]
Where Have All the Gophers Gone?
Subtitled "Why the Web Beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mindshare", which pretty much explains what this essay is about. Also goes into some detail about the development and evolution of Gopher.
date added: 2024-10-26
tags: gopher history internet
The Trojan Room Coffee Pot
The Trojan Room at the University of Cambridge Computer Lab was the site of the very first web cam, when its predecessor, XCoffee - a frame grabber tracking the state of the lab's coffee pot - was ported to the web in November 1993. The coffee pot and the Trojan Room are long gone, and the webcam was turned off in 2001, but its web site lives on as a testament to a heroic age now barely visible through the mists of time.
date added: 2024-08-17
tags: web history coffee
multicians.org
A comprehensive compendium of historical materials relating to the Multics operating system. Site has been in development since 1994 and is comprised of "487 HTML files ... 1794 PDF files, and 662 graphic images."
date added: 2024-07-20
tags: computers history
The Old Calculator Web Museum
Dedicated to preserving and documenting old calculators, primarily of the electronic variety, and secondarily of the electro-mechanical. Curated by Rick Bensene, indexed by date and manufacturer.
date added: 2024-06-09
tags: calculators history
The NOTIS History Webpage
A site dedicated to the history of the NOTIS Integrated Library System (aka "catalogue", if you're not a librarian). "NOTIS (Northwestern On-line Total Integrated System) was developed at Northwestern University Library beginning in 1967, installed at other sites starting in 1979, spun-off as a separate, for-profit company in 1987, sold to Ameritech in 1991, and last used by any library in 2012." That's a pretty good run ...
date added: 2024-05-11
tags: libraries software history
Gode Cookery
A site - or collection of sites - for those who like good old fashioned cooking. As in Medieval, Renaissance, Elizabethan, Byzantine, etc. On the web since 1997.
date added: 2024-02-16
tags: cooking recipes history
History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
"From the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network" ... A comprehensive collection of historical materials - essays, photos, news articles, etc. Brought to you by Bill Burns, this site has been in development since 1999 or thereabouts.
date added: 2024-02-15
tags: telegraph networks history
The Valve Page
A gallery and compendium of information about old radios and television sets, brought to you by collector and restorer Jon "Jonz" Evans. Pictures, descriptions, technical data, history and more.
date added: 2023-07-05
tags: tv radio electronics history
World Radio History
An immense and impressive trove of scanned magazines, journals, books and ephemera charting the development of radio and broadcasting through the 20th century. Brought to you by David Gleason.
date added: 2023-06-24
tags: radio history
Mimosa Online
The webified version of a fanzine "very much devoted to the preservation of the history of science fiction fandom," published from 1982 through 2003 by editors Nicki and Richard Lynch. Six-time winner of the Best Fanzine Hugo, the list of contributors reads like a "who's who" of science fiction fandom of that increasingly bygone era.
date added: 2023-06-03
tags: scifi fandom history
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
The Last Deadloss Visions
"An enquiry into the non-appearance of Harlan Ellison's THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS, written by Christopher Priest." Ellison's follow up to his two much acclaimed "Dangerous Visions" anthologies has been scheduled for publication "real soon now" for the past 50 years, a condition persisting even after the death of the editor. SF author Christopher Priest's fascinating account of endless delays and broken promises dates from 1987, with revisions up to 1994 or so.
date added: 2023-04-09
tags: scifi history
JM's World War One Sketchbook
"The images presented on this website are from a set of two World War One sketchbooks archived in the University of Victoria's Special Collections Library. They contain approximately 130 water-colour and pen and ink images which were produced by a British soldier based in France and Belgium between 1917 and 1918."
date added: 2023-02-17
tags: history war art
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
Cliff Stoll's Performance Art Theater and Networking Security Revue
Clifford Stoll narrates his story of hunting down a computer hacker who broke into the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the mid-80s. It was published in book form as "The Cuckoo's Egg" in 1989, but here is embodied in a series of short audio clips and tiny little pictures of Stoll presenting on stage. You may want to watch the excellent PBS documentary as well.
date added: 2022-11-07
tags: infosec history networks
The Hacker Crackdown
Bruce Sterling tells classic tales of Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier. Phreaking, Hacking, and Real Cyberpunk in the World Before the Web. Highlights include the origins of the EFF, and indeed, some of the backstory of SDF, in the chronicle of the "Killer" UNIX BBS.
date added: 2022-11-06
tags: cyberpunk bbs unix history infosec
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
Alexei Panshin's The Abyss of Wonder
A great collection of essays by a noted science fiction author, critic, and historian. Many historical essays on Golden Age science fiction, with a particular emphasis on Robert A. Heinlein. Includes the full text of Panshin's controversial Hugo-award winning book, "Heinlein in Dimension." Update, 2024-02-16: Alexei Panshin passed away in August 2022, but the site is being maintained as he left it, with a slight change to the URL.
date added: 2022-05-30
tags: scifi history
The Fanac Fan History Project
"This site is devoted to the preservation and distribution of information about science fiction and science fiction fandom. There are fanzines, photos, and all sorts of strange and wonderful information about fandom's past."
date added: 2022-05-20
tags: scifi fandom history
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
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
The Dead Media Project
A collaborative inventory of dead media, coordinated by Bruce Sterling and Richard Kadrey
date added: 2022-03-20
tags: media history technology
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
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
textfiles.com
"What this site offers is a glimpse into the history of writers and artists bound by the 128 characters that the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) allowed them. The focus is on mid-1980's textfiles and the world as it was then, but even these files are sometime retooled 1960s and 1970s works". Brought to you by the indefatiguable Jason Scott.
date added: 2022-02-12
tags: art writing bbs history software
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.
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