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Dr. Quinn official website from 1998, still online

drquinnmd.com

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Re: Dr. Quinn official website from 1998, still online

#42

Somehow the Dole/Kemp site from 96 is still going: http://www.dolekemp96.org/main.htm Someone must have a decent list, some kinda of "Awesome 90s" list on GitHub or something?

Runs on IIS 7.5, so it’s gotten back end upgrades.

http://www.dolekemp96.org/interactive/computer/bobdole.pict

Re: Dr. Quinn official website from 1998, still online

#43
post #6

OMG why is that button blurry? If I were a kid today I'd wonder why old people ever bothered watching television or browsing the internet at all. At the same time, I probably wouldn't even notice that famous Beatles recordings were recorded in mono.

> At the same time, I probably wouldn't even notice that famous Beatles recordings were recorded in mono.

https://www.jonathancoulton.com/2008/10/10/funny-story/

> What’s amazing to me is that it hasn’t really mattered in any significant way. I’m sure I sweated like crazy over the stereo placement of this or that element during the mixing process, and then I just plastered over all those details with stucco, and turns out nobody really cares. Not even me, apparently.

As far as my personal experience, I've noticed a stereo effect as being kind of cool on one song, and severely detrimental on one other song. Overall, my world would be better if every track was in mono.

(What's the problem? "Pineapple Princess" plays on a Pandora channel of mine in stereo. I listen to Pandora with headphones. The particular stereo implementation is that the bass only plays in one of the ears. It's truly awful.)

(This one, in case there are multiple covers: https://www.pandora.com/artist/annette-funicello-childrens/a... )

Re: Dr. Quinn official website from 1998, still online

#44
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at 858 bytes, even if you were able to connect at a full 56k connection on your modem (many people could only get some lower fraction, like 33.6 or 28.8 because of line noise), it would still take almost an eigth of a second to download the button if your connection did nothing but that. Designing for the web in the 90's and early 2000's was so much more a matter of picking the right trade-offs to make. Shitty trade-…

In '98 not many would even have 56K - unless adoption was much quicker elsewhere than here (UK). The first units didn't hit the market until '97, and were not cheap, and the V90 standard followed in early '98. Also it was rare to see more than 48K in my experience, 40K on many lines. Memories of reconnecting and forcing a 36k6 symmetric attempt (anything standard above had upstream at half the rate if down) rather th…

It probably varied widely based on locale. I did tech support for a Northern California ISP in 1999, and there were plenty of people connecting at 53k, even considering that we were seeing people who were calling because of problems. 48k and 44k were also very common speeds to connect to at that time, but really whether you could connect close to the full speed depended quite a bit on the wiring in your house, from your house to and central office, and also the weather (rainy days resulting in staticy sounding lines for many people, and quite an increase in tech support calls).

I also remember a fairly amazing story about how a user (which I never spoke to, but others had) finally diagnosed their own problem where their 1.5 Mbps ADSL connection would have a problem at approximately the same time each evening as when the street lamp turned on. Those old Alcatel 1000 DSL modems had notoriously bad problems with interference.

Re: Dr. Quinn official website from 1998, still online

#45
post #4

What's interesting to me is that, in spite of the site having been online since 1998, the site has been updated long after that - on the same platform. There are new box sets from 2009 for sale, for instance. My naive assumption is that the site works well enough, and overhauling it or moving it to another platform (even a common one, that wouldn't require as much individual upkeep) just isn't worth it. I had a profe…

Oh my god, your professor’s site is amazing - those torches!

There’s definitely something to be said about focusing on the goal of a site and knowing when a fancier presentation is actually necessary.

Re: Dr. Quinn official website from 1998, still online

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. The only slight irritation I notice is the scrolling isn’t soft-locked to just up and down so when I scroll it does a bit of horizontal drift.

You must have good eyes then, or more likely you have a really big phone.

Safari’s ‘reader view’ comprehends the page quite well though and makes the text very comfortable.

Re: Dr. Quinn official website from 1998, still online

#49

Aside from not working well on devices that didn't yet exist when this was built, I'm having a hard time coming up with reasons why I don't like this design. I'm sure there are accessibility issues and other things that would be addressed now, but as for layout I still like it.

I would not be at all surprised if, accessibility-wise, it worked at least as well as most modern websites, perhaps better.

Re: Dr. Quinn official website from 1998, still online

#50
post #4

What's interesting to me is that, in spite of the site having been online since 1998, the site has been updated long after that - on the same platform. There are new box sets from 2009 for sale, for instance. My naive assumption is that the site works well enough, and overhauling it or moving it to another platform (even a common one, that wouldn't require as much individual upkeep) just isn't worth it. I had a profe…

So, the world of ham radio is basically full of personal websites that all look like they came directly from 1998, many of which are routinely updated. You’ll have radio amateurs posting really sophisticated antenna and circuit designs on these lovely old webpages. A notable example is eQSL (eqsl.cc), which is one of the central sites for confirming on-air contacts; it definitely has that late-90s flair to it. The outmoded web design is truly one of the underappreciated joys and charms of the hobby.
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