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Classic internet shenanigans.

QuartzQuartz Member Posts: 3,853
in Off-Topic
The internet feels like a more "established" place nowadays, but back in the day there was a lot of amateurish, hilarious, often stupid shenanigans. Share your nostalgia. I'll start:

http://www.zombo.com

Comments

  • QuartzQuartz Member Posts: 3,853
    @elminster Hahahahahah well played sir.
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,760
    A "google" of good old days: http://www.hotbot.com/

    And the first Web search engine ever: http://www.aliweb.com/ - it comes from 1993!

    One classics I can name is http://www.mcspotlight.org/index.shtml
  • mlnevesemlnevese Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
    No love for Altavista in the forum? :)
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,760
    mlnevese said:

    No love for Altavista in the forum? :)

    I wanted to point to this site too in my previous post but unfortunately it turns out there's no more Altavista - it's now part of the YAHOO. Instead of http://be.altavista.com/ we see http://be.search.yahoo.com/?fr=altavista now. According to the Wikipedia, on July 8, 2013, the service was shut down by Yahoo! and the domain redirects to Yahoo!'s own search site.

    Another thing to be gone...
  • jackjackjackjack Member Posts: 3,251
    Ah, good old BBS.
    Then later, Webcrawler.
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    I used AOL. Their search thingy (well, I hesitate to call it an "engine") was WebCrawler. And they had the original Neverwinter Nights on there. And the Dragon Magazine/TSR boards. I downloaded tons of homebrew spells and magic items from the board- most hideously overpowered, of course, and then imported them into Microsoft Word and had them printed and bound. I still have the paper copies, but the CD-Rom I had them on has vanished into smoke somehow. I made a magic item called "The Blade of Chaos", which was formed from chaos itself and when unsheathed, continually changed size, blade type, magic bonus, color and powers on a 1d12 scale.

    I also came up with "Low-Power magic items, and oddities like a small, rectangular box with two lenses- one larger and affixed to the front of the box, and a smaller one that went straight through from front to back. There was also a slit-like opening on the lower part of the front of the box, and a single button. If you point the large lens at something and push the button. it makes a strange sort of whirring noise and an image of whatever the large lens was facing at the time emerges from the bottom of the box. Yup, magical camera that never needs film. But if you open the box it's empty and cannot be repaired.
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    ITS PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!

    no? Its not? Aww...
  • CrevsDaakCrevsDaak Member Posts: 7,155
    edited November 2014
    I'm surprised nobody mentioned http://www.internetoracle.org yet. It's pretty good.
  • SquireSquire Member Posts: 511
    It's not there any more, but I used to frequent a chat room on Geocities, where I used to flirt a lot with a Canadian girl whom I took a liking to, for some reason. I also got into an argument with a pair of Hanson fans (yes, Hanson!! XD ), and met a girl who told us she was in a Backstreet Boys video.

    Those were the days - when using the internet involved paying a subscription to AOL and using an external modem, and run dial-up networking in the early hours, because it involved me taking the phone cable out and putting the modem in instead! Oh, and paying BT for the call too, because local calls weren't free in the UK at that time!!

    I spent a lot to use the net back then, but it was worth it. ;-)
  • QuartzQuartz Member Posts: 3,853
    @Squire Oh my gosh, so late 90's - early 00's. I love it.
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Is MSN Messenger still cool?
  • wubblewubble Member Posts: 3,156
    DreadKhan said:

    Is MSN Messenger still cool?

    as an 18 year old i'm gonna have to say no

    (being 18 qualifies me to judge these matters)
  • kiwidockiwidoc Member Posts: 1,437
    I remember in the mid 80s sitting at the mainframe computor at MOW in New Zealand playing a text only adventure game. My then husband was an engineer who worked there. This game was totally unofficial, but people from all round the world kept adding more and more rooms, and leaving messages for other players. Needless to say if someone from a armed forces base in alaska left a joke on the wall in the maze it blew my mind!
  • SquireSquire Member Posts: 511
    DreadKhan said:

    Is MSN Messenger still cool?

    Nope, it stopped being cool when so-called "normal" people started using it in the year 2004. XD (j/k!)

    Seriously though, I used to use it a lot to chat to my Dutch cyber-buddy from the old PlanetBaldursGate, but I haven't used it for years now.

    Also, does anybody else think that the Backstreet Boys were the 20th century equivalent to Twilight (i.e. everybody hated them except for certain teenage girls, who fawned over the very sight of them)? ;-)
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    I used MSN a good bit from early 2002, heavily in 04 to 07, then very little for a couple more years.

    I did some BBSing iirc starting in '93, mostly played some very simple OLGs. Legend of the Red Dragon was pretty cool, but I played some slightly more advanced ones too. Simple concept, but fun.
  • SquireSquire Member Posts: 511
    I also used to play one of the first ever MMORPGs: Ultima Online!
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    DreadKhan said:

    Is MSN Messenger still cool?

    That brings me back. :)
  • mlnevesemlnevese Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
    Wasn't Messenger merged with Skype?
  • TressetTresset Member, Moderator Posts: 8,268
    My favorite was HomestarRunner.com
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    MSN messenger?

    ICQ is where all the cool kids hung.
  • mlnevesemlnevese Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
    @deltago‌ I still use it. I have it on my computer, tablet and phone...
  • old_jolly2old_jolly2 Member Posts: 453
    http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/17-angelfire-pages-that-are-still-up-right-now
    deltago said:

    MSN messenger?

    ICQ is where all the cool kids hung.

    hallowed by thy UIN...
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