# What's the oldest & most primtive website or webpage still operational? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 23, 2006, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956 "2006-08-23T22:44:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2006, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/1 "2006-08-23T22:44:30Z")
[Beat this one I ran across. Last edited in 1998 & still online!](http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/7575/) ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2006, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/2 "2006-08-23T22:52:11Z")
I could move this to General Questions, but it seems mundane to me. Moved from IMHO to MPSIMS. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2006, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/3 "2006-08-24T00:59:55Z")
I can beat that. And embarrass myself in the process! [GoddessHome](http://www.angelfire.com/mn/goddesshome/), my original Angelfire homepage, made via WebTV in 1997, complete with angsty teenage poetry and a “Why am I alone?!” rant! The angsty teenage poetry wouldn’t be too bad if I hadn’t written most of it when I was between 21 and 27… ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2006, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/4 "2006-08-25T07:21:33Z")
The first web server address (though with different content now): [http://info.cern.ch/](http://info.cern.ch/) This page mentions that by November 1992 there were 26 web servers in the world! It also gives the first web page address: [The World Wide Web project](http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html) though this address no longer works (it’s redirected to info.cern.ch. Of the content, the page says: > [@](#): > > There are no screenshots of this original page and, in any case, changes were made daily to the information available on the page as the WWW project developed. You may find a later copy (1992) on the World Wide Web Consortium website. The 1992 copy: [http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html](http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html) ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2006, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/5 "2006-08-25T07:28:27Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] The 1992 copy: [http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html](http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html) [/QUOTE] You know, every time I see something like that, I wonder why nobody saw all the porn coming. ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2006, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/6 "2006-08-25T08:39:52Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] You know, every time I see something like that, I wonder why nobody saw all the porn coming. [/QUOTE] There was Internet porn in 1992 – problem was, all the pics were GIF, BMP, or Targa files, ranging in size from 500kb to 3mb, which would take over an hour _per image_ to download over your 9600 baud modem. Computerized video was practially non-existent. So it was still more convenient to buy/rent your porn at brick-and-mortar stores, and save that precious dial-up time for downloading warez and stuff. What nobody predicted was the exponential explosion of (1) high-compression formats, e.g. JPEG and PNG, and (2) bandwidth. Oh, and banner ads. Do you remember the Internet without banner ads? I do. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2006, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/7 "2006-08-25T10:35:14Z")
[QUOTE=KGS] So it was still more convenient to buy/rent your porn at brick-and-mortar stores, and save that precious dial-up time for downloading warez and stuff. [sub]Underlining by Tripler[/sub] [/quote] Oh is _that_ what they’re calling them these days? Interesting. . . Tripler “Brick” and “mortar”. Gotcha. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2006, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/8 "2006-08-25T11:20:57Z")
[Microsoft](http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/fonts/comicsns/default.htm) still has active pages going back to at least 1997. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2006, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/9 "2006-08-25T16:56:02Z")
[QUOTE=KGS] Oh, and banner ads. Do you remember the Internet without banner ads? I do. ☹ [/QUOTE] Well, sorta. When I first got online in 1997 I could only connect at 14.4 kbps so I always set Internet Explorer to “do not show images” as a default. ---
**Author:** ![Barrels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@Barrels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barrels)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2006, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/10 "2006-08-25T20:55:45Z")
Behold > **[Dry Fertilizer Equipment Sales & Parts | Doyle Manufacturing](https://www.doylemfg.com/)** > > Doyle Equipment Manufacturing Co. is an innovative leader in worldwide quality dry fertilizer blending, conveying, tending, and spreading equipment. The best part is that these people put this on the advertising they run. They really want people to see this! Barrels ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2006, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/11 "2006-08-25T21:56:13Z")
[quote=Sunspace] The 1992 copy [of the first web site ever- **BoD**]: [http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-...TheProject.htmlI](http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-...TheProject.htmlI) like the part where it desrcibes the web as a “wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative.” I wonder if it would have caught on with a name like WAHIRI? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2006, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/12 "2006-08-25T22:01:56Z")
I like this one. Oh the horror! [http://web.archive.org/web/19961230204507/http://www.straightdope.com/](http://web.archive.org/web/19961230204507/http://www.straightdope.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2006, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/13 "2006-08-26T01:36:10Z")
Janet. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2006, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/14 "2006-08-26T01:51:55Z")
[QUOTE=Shagnasty] I like this one. Oh the horror! > **[The Straight Dope](http://web.archive.org/web/19961230204507/http://www.straightdope.com/)** [/QUOTE] …the sad part is the layout has barely changed… ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2006, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/15 "2006-08-26T01:54:52Z")
As far as primitive goes, [www.something.com](http://www.something.com) gets my vote. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2006, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/16 "2006-08-26T05:03:58Z")
[This one](http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive.html) looks primitive even in a modern browser, but there’s apparently a redirect for truly ancient browsers using HTML 1.1, and the redirect is to a [truly primitive](http://home.earthlink.net/~ahunter03/Stuff/InfoMac_Samba.jpg) FTP style format that hasn’t been touched since the dawn of web. It’s one of the few web sites I can access and utilize with [Samba](http://home.tiscali.dk/cadams/se/MacWWW103.sit.hqx) under System 6. “Samba” in this case refers to the CERN web browser that makes Mosaic look sleek and modern, not the Unix SMB protocol stack. Samba can open [Chris Reid’s](http://home.earthlink.net/~ahunter03/Stuff/ChrisReid.jpg) page too. Also technically the [GoddessHome](http://home.earthlink.net/~ahunter03/Stuff/GoddessHome.jpg) page, but with, umm, aesthetically unpleasant results. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2006, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/17 "2006-08-26T07:59:18Z")
[QUOTE=AHunter3] Also technically the [GoddessHome](http://home.earthlink.net/~ahunter03/Stuff/GoddessHome.jpg) page, but with, umm, aesthetically unpleasant results. [/QUOTE] Eh. It was already aesthetically unpleasant. At least you avoid the obnoxiously multiple graphics placeholders in Samba… ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2006, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/18 "2006-08-26T10:28:11Z")
[QUOTE=AHunter3] Samba [/quote] How about [Lynx](http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g3/owainsutton/lynx.gif)? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![FilmGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2006, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/19 "2006-08-26T14:03:36Z")
[QUOTE=Barrels] Behold > **[Doyle Manufacturing blenders, conveyors, tenders & spreaders](https://doylemfg.com/)** > > Doyle Manufacturing produces & services equipment for blending, conveying, conditioning, tending, and spreading dry fertilizer for systems and facilities The best part is that these people put this on the advertising they run. They really want people to see this! Barrels [/QUOTE] In that same vein: [www.nwpump.com](http://www.nwpump.com) ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2006, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956/20 "2006-08-26T21:35:41Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] How about [Lynx](http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g3/owainsutton/lynx.gif)? 😉 [/QUOTE] In all fairness, Lynx is not an ancient browser. It’s as standards-compliant as you can get and still be a text-based browser. Witness the fact that you were able to bring up a Straight Dope in Lynx. (Can you log in via Lynx?) Samba very definitely won’t do SDMB. Won’t do earthlink home pages. Does Google but with no way to enter a search term. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-most-primtive-website-or-webpage-still-operational/369956.md?page=2)