Anyone else interested in restoring / maintaining the classic web ?

[kevinbarnes]

As 90s computers have become vintage in the last 5 years or so, it bothers me that the web has become so unusable on them, when it doesn't have to be, if just a few people cared to maintain it.

In a way things are bettter for early 90s machines - Ping is still Ping, FTP is still FTP, Telnet is Telnet. It either works, or the server is gone.Rightmove Kijiji Quizlet


For late 90s machines though, the web is a complete mess, and since the transition to HTML5 almost nothing works.

Basically there's two ways we could go about it: - the sane way of setting up a "webring" or "directory" (remember those) of Web 1.0 sites that host content relevant to 90s era computers in a 90s era format. (HTML 3.2, reduced download sizes, no scripting, etc). I don't see any good reason for a retrocomputing site dedicated to Windows 3.1/9x, Amiga, OS/2, Classic Mac OS, even DOS to not be accessible from a computer running them.

Now the crazy way of doing things would be to host our own alternate DNS server hierarchy, and pull content from the Internet Archive circa 97. Yahoo, Netscape, Microsoft, Geocities, etc.. and as long as you connect to the right DNS everything looks as it used to be, frozen in time. Until you get sued for violating copyright and trademarks I guess.

[KC9UDX]

I was just thinking the other day about my personal website from 1997-2006. It's probably ready to go back online with a simple NVRAM chip repair. But I'm not likely to register a domain for it again.

And if I get it running again, I'm going to put it on my lan, not on the WAN side of my firewalls, and not in a DMZ.

[Mr. Horse]

Yes I very much like old sites and thing we should archive them. I have a full archive of falconfly.de myself.
Id love to setup a server that hosts nothing but 90s sites for us retro 90s nuts, but that would be a full time job and a security nightmare.

I was just thinking the other day about my personal website from 1997-2006. It's probably ready to go back online with a simple NVRAM chip repair. But I'm not likely to register a domain for it again.

And if I get it running again, I'm going to put it on my lan, not on the WAN side of my firewalls, and not in a DMZ.

Well technically you don't need a domain to host a site if you have a static IP.
But yes I get you, registering a domain today is not like it used to be. I got a domain from a major broker a few years back and they closed it because they "could not verify who I was", their words not mine. I call up their support and was told to send an email to X address, they never got back with me. I got mad and kept calling but they did not seem to care and just told me to send an email to X address.
I switched brokers and it was mostly the same the same way. But they did care to the point that they unlocked the domain after I called them.
At the time I read that this is now the normal thing. You buy the domain, you get the nice new shinny domain all setup with your website and within a week it gets blocked and black listed by the broker until you send them you photo ID, ssn and so on. You'd think they tell you this upfront.

[Chuck(G)]

Never had that problem with GoDaddy or any other broker, save Network Solutions back in the day.

[KenEG]

One of the things that would be really useful, if there are no copyright issues, would be a free site for vintage computer drivers/firmware updates. I have a Compaq computer running Windows 10. I went to the HP/Compaq site the other day to try to get a firmware or driver update for the DVD drive because it isn't being set up properly. The site auto-detected my machine and told me they purge drivers, etc. for machines over 10 years old. What are we going to do once these computers are vintage?

[Mr. Horse]

One cool thing about older older sites is that toastytech.com is still around. I know is not a 90s site, but it sure fits in with late 90s sties.

Never had that problem with GoDaddy or any other broker, save Network Solutions back in the day.

Nether did I. However it would seem that things have changed and ICANN is mad that to many sites are registered to daffy duck or something, so now brokers have to be sure they know who it buying the domain. Or so I have been told.

One of the things that would be really useful, if there are no copyright issues, would be a free site for vintage computer drivers/firmware updates. I have a Compaq computer running Windows 10. I went to the HP/Compaq site the other day to try to get a firmware or driver update for the DVD drive because it isn't being set up properly. The site auto-detected my machine and told me they purge drivers, etc. for machines over 10 years old. What are we going to do once these computers are vintage?

This is one of the things I would like to see more off. I have a knack for the odd systems no one likes or has. Finding things like bios/firmware and drivers can be a problem for me. OEM restore disks with all the apps that shipped with the system would be nice to have too, but there is a lot of legal red tape with uploading something like a OS restore disk or factory disk images. Best not to go there.

I have found a lot of drivers and firmware for rare and odd hardware on driverguide.com. But sites like that are known to have malware hiding in the drives so you have to be VERY careful with them. I have yet to find any malware in a driver I got from driverguide, but YMMV.

[Chuck(G)]

Given that so many domains are registered behind privacy proxy services, I don't see what ICANN's beef is.

[Trixter]

I was just thinking the other day about my personal website from 1997-2006. It's probably ready to go back online with a simple NVRAM chip repair.

I never took mine down. Here's one up since 1994: http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained/demos.html

[ngtwolf]

Never had that problem with GoDaddy or any other broker, save Network Solutions back in the day.

Same here, and I have quite a few domains (doing absolutely nothing).. I've used godaddy, enom and a number of others throughout the years... everything is moved to namesilo right now. I can't recall the last time anyone cared about domain registration info, at least for a .com/.net domain.

Nether did I. However it would seem that things have changed and ICANN is mad that to many sites are registered to daffy duck or something, so now brokers have to be sure they know who it buying the domain. Or so I have been told.

Which registrar was this? need to make sure I avoid them.

[ngtwolf]

I have found a lot of drivers and firmware for rare and odd hardware on driverguide.com. But sites like that are known to have malware hiding in the drives so you have to be VERY careful with them. I have yet to find any malware in a driver I got from driverguide, but YMMV.

The problem with those sites is finding the correct link for the download vs the 15 download link ads that install the adware (or worse, malware/spyware) applications.