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This is what the web looked like in 1994
Wow. We never thought about it this way before, but if the web still looked like this, you wouldn't need an iPhone with Safari to surf the web on your phone.
Remember back when the web was basically text and an occasional logo or product picture on a plain background? And remember when the idea of buying and selling things online was new and kind of scary?
This promotional video from 1994 does beg one question though. If this company was trying to promote itself, why does it tell viewers to email for more information at the end? Shouldn't they have an amazing web site of their own?
[via Google Blogoscoped]
Remember back when the web was basically text and an occasional logo or product picture on a plain background? And remember when the idea of buying and selling things online was new and kind of scary?
This promotional video from 1994 does beg one question though. If this company was trying to promote itself, why does it tell viewers to email for more information at the end? Shouldn't they have an amazing web site of their own?
[via Google Blogoscoped]
Comments
57
Subscribe to commentskregJul 12th 2007 9:23AM
They do talk about there site and service its Digital!
kregJul 12th 2007 9:23AM
They do mention& talk about there services and site its called "Digital"
Brad LinderJul 12th 2007 9:23AM
Right, but at the end, they say "for more information call this number," which seems a bit silly these days when most companies direct people to their website.
Chris GilmerJul 12th 2007 9:29AM
The music makes it so exciting!
MartinJul 12th 2007 9:34AM
There were about 10 people who had acces to the internet back then, all the rest thought of it as something scary and complicated. Thats probebly why they want people to contact them by phone/e-mail.
Grammar freakJul 12th 2007 9:44AM
You whippersnappers probably don't realize this but Digital was one of the bigger players in the tech world for quite a while. Them and Wang. Big on Rt-128.
And yes, I remember when I had a web browser that did not support background colors other than gray.
JoshJul 12th 2007 9:57AM
Hey, I used to work for that company!
LaydrosJul 12th 2007 10:07AM
Of course the website digital.com still works, sort of. After watching this video I was curious if someone else ended up with that potentially very good url. Instead it redirected where I thought it might. Compaq bought digital some time ago, and then HP bought Compaq a few years ago.
If you don't remember digital (aka DEC) you might have run across either old NT discs or *nix stuff mentioning the Alpha processor. I think Compaq ditched them soon after they bought DEC. There were some other major technologies they were responsible for, but I can't remember off the top of my head.
bill weaverJul 12th 2007 1:08PM
Back in 1994 a lot of people had email but it was via Compuserve, AOL, and their proprietary brethren rather than directly directly through Internet providers. Most could email out via the Internet but getting to a website was less common.
Markus TrappJul 12th 2007 1:17PM
Everyone who wants to take a look liek a website was presented in mosaic can do that with this emulator:
http://www.dejavu.org/emulator.htm
Kind of funny and surprising results are guaranteed ;-)
DiddleJul 12th 2007 2:14PM
Oooh - all the Times New Roman is hurting my eyes! O_O
TomJul 13th 2007 9:04AM
Why do Digital (whose presence I remember fondly, btw) have it set so all pages appear on that horrible pea-soup background colour, apart from the missing persons page, which is coloured like Barney?
I'm actually pretty impressed with how much of The Future they were on-the-money about.
Though I chuckled when they promised I'd be able to download "software descriptions" - if only I was near some sort of machine that might be able to give me an idea what RUNNING that software might be like!
ChrisJul 13th 2007 9:04AM
If you write your web page properly, using semantic HTML, minding the media attribute in your externally linked CSS you really DON'T need an iPhone to view a web page 'properly' on a mobile device... It will look exactly like this, simple and to the point.
MorganJul 13th 2007 9:04AM
Everyone misuses 'begs the question', but:
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/begs.html
cargurJul 13th 2007 9:01AM
you dont need an iphone just use opera mini
metroxingJul 13th 2007 9:01AM
Digital or DEC was the 5th company EVER to register a domain name - earlier than IBM or any of the Bell companies ...
http://www.jottings.com/100-oldest-dot-com-domains.htm
JeremyJul 13th 2007 8:57AM
You guys are all kids! I wasw using the Internet in 1989 and it was around a long time before that. What you are talking about here is the early web, not the Internet, and this isn't even that early.
The ironic part is, the best websites today still look much the same in terms of the content, and the pages actually load slower due to all the ads, or the ad-blocking software you have to use to get rid of the ads.
The web was truly magnificent back then. Ever since the capitalists "discovered" it (as if it wasn't already doing fine without them), it's been a crapfest.
AoEJul 13th 2007 8:57AM
Actually, the iPhone's browser would have been better back then than it is now, as flash wasn't used all over the internet in 1994. ;)
MartenJul 13th 2007 8:57AM
www.interplay.com is a game companies website, not been updated in forever lol.
Acceptable RiskJul 13th 2007 8:55AM
Don't you people remember when you could get an email address without having access to the Internet? I remember having an email address for a few years before I actually had access to the World Wide Web. And even then, I made do just fine with Lynx (old text based browser for dial-in BBS's; look it up) for a couple more years before I actually got a connection I could use Navigator on.