this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
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What should I add to my '90s website?

So I'm currently toying around with NeoCities, and decided to trial it by building your classic mid '90s Geocities/Tripod/Angelfire pastiche website.

Some of the most important elements are already in place.

Tile background? Large font? Heading in bright pink with a shadow? Unusual colour choices? Random cat gifs? Under construction gif? Check! Check! Check!

In the true spirit of the '90s DIY web, some more pages (including the links page) are coming soon.

(I'm thinking of adding a page dedicated to either Britney or a nu-metal band.)

You can see the page so far here: https://that90ssite.neocities.org/

There are a few things that I want to add to make it complete, and I'm looking for suggestions.

The first, is to embed a midi file that plays automatically. Any suggestions on the best way of doing this?

Second, it's just not going to be complete without a guestbook.

Third, any webring suggestions?

Fourth, what's the best way of adding a java chat room in 2024?

Finally, anything else that really needs to be a part of a great '90s website?

UPDATE: Thanks for all the feedback! I've added more annoying GIFs, a guestbook, a links page, and a cyber cat hangout.

UPDATE 2: And added even more gifs, an amazing Amiga demo, and a ton of links.

@asklemmy #tech #webdev #neocities #technology

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Needs a blink tag and some old style Microsoft Word art.

[–] scorpious 5 points 8 months ago

Fun idea. ASCII Art!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

You need this image:
http://hwg.org/images/lo-025.gif

You can even go all out and actually join legitimately: http://hwg.org/services/logo/

[–] ComplexLotus 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

use html tables with large borders ... or that is how I feel the old times look

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Guestbook didn't work, after recaptcha it just said POST failed. Oh and you need a visitor counter!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Custom curors that animate at rest and during loading so you're not sure which part of the curors clicks, and also not sure sure if something is being loaded or not. Bonus points if the cursor changes to yet another ambiguous animated one as you hover over a tiny button which would pause the midi track.

[–] sanguinepar 4 points 8 months ago

You might get some useful ideas on [email protected] (although it seems abandoned now)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

The midi file doesn't play automatically, but I see that's a thing your working on.

Also need gifs of Bart Simpson saying "Don't have a cow man"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Comic Sans MS

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Nah that was a 2000s thing. It existed, under different names and owned by different companies in the 90s up until 2005 when it was bought by Adobe but you wouldn't likely have seen flash elements on webpages. I think it was more of a vector drawing tool around that time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Internet Explorer had an API called ActiveX, which let you run native code in the browser. Flash was an ActiveX object, but there were others available too. Adobe Shockwave was already available for Internet Explorer 3 in 1996 (https://news.microsoft.com/1996/06/03/microsoft-and-macromedia-deliver-shockwave-and-activex-to-millions-of-web-customers-and-developers/), and in the 90s you'd usually see either Shockwave or Java.

A precursor to Flash (FutureSplash) was already available in the 90s too, but it wasn't quite as popular yet.

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[–] ShadowCatEXE 4 points 8 months ago

You need some β€œimportant” data that’s in an unstyled bulky table. You also need some horizontal rules on the page to split up content.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Can we have a globe please that magically spins?

[–] FireWire400 4 points 8 months ago

Background audio player that automatically plays some crusty grunge midis

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That site would have been considered remarkably beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. As such it's not quite realistic.

Much too legible. I recommend less contrast for the text.

I don't see you playing with alignment? I would like more centered text personally. And long lines of text without breaks.

Why not throw in some "lorem ipsum" placeholders.

Are you using a WYSIWYG editor?

Where are your dancing hampsters?

Also is this before or after it became trendy to copy/paste all sorts of scripts into the html? Remember scrolling text on the status bar, how about those ascii things that follow your mouse around?

I'd keep an eye on your page's size, remember we would be loading this on 56k dialup modems... if we were lucky!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Also remember the nearest comparison to building a website, was a book, magazine, or newspaper. So just plop those text and images down as if it was a book, only ever intended to be viewed at one fixed resolution (say, 800x600). No smartphones yet. No apps to inspire us. No web 2.0. No emphasis on minimalism or dynamic content.

Unexpected and unpleasant things should happen with different browsers, window sizes, etc.

[–] HurlingDurling 3 points 8 months ago

Add a visitor counter like this one - https://retrowptheme.com/retro-visitor-counter/

for more vintage gif's check this website - https://gifcities.org

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I had to go dig up the link again. Was looking for this folding license plate step thing I saw once, and found the sellers website. Looks like it is also straight out of the 90's

http://markthree.com/custom_vans_license_plate_steps.htm

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

@ajsadauskas @linux Image maps? <marquee>? A digital view counter, or one of those gifs of a spinning odometer.
A link that goes to a clip art digger saying 'under construction' in 90s office clip art.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

That cat is way too high res

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I love it! Takes me right back. I was going to suggest adding a visitor counter but you already had it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Spinning wordart!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

@ajsadauskas @asklemmy iframes - you definitely need them

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago
[–] Hackerman_uwu 3 points 8 months ago

You need to offer something banal for download with a spinning stiffy disk gif.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

It should work at 640x480 and no other resolution.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Needs an animated gif that doesn't properly render transparency, so the background is just a solid color.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Line by line loading images, maybe an error message saying the connection dropped with the modem sound playing to restart the page.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

BOOTSTRA.386 (okay, on second thought, that's more the 80s and doesn't really fit.)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

This is going on my bookmarks toolbar. Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

One of those Java applets at the bottom that looks like water reflecting the site background perhaps?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

@[email protected] @[email protected] I think I actually have a few of my 90s-era sites archived. One of them should have an auto play midi for the background music. I'll see if I can dig it up!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (3 children)

@[email protected] @[email protected] I actually started down this path a little while back and have since gotten sidetracked.

https://weblike99.com/

[–] bandwidthcrisis 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I think that maybe not knowing how to make the embedded midi auto-play is more authentic!

But I used to use Autostart=true in the Embed tag.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

You've got the under construction gif. Done.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago
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