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]
This is what the web looked like in 1994
Posted Jul 12th 2007 8:00AM by Brad Linder
Filed under: Internet
Related Headlines
- Nominate the best for the Flash Forward Film Festival (8 days ago - 0 Comments)
- Gramlee - Website for people who can't write good (16 days ago - 2 Comments)
- Want to help Azureus (Vuze) fight BitTorrent throttling ISPs? (51 days ago - 0 Comments)
- Trendrr - compare and share social data (53 days ago - 0 Comments)
- Desktop on Demand: Nice, but worth the cost? (65 days ago - 3 Comments)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
7-12-2007 @ 9:23AM
kreg said...
They do talk about there site and service its Digital!
Reply
7-12-2007 @ 9:23AM
kreg said...
They do mention& talk about there services and site its called "Digital"
Reply
7-12-2007 @ 9:23AM
Brad Linder said...
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.
Reply
7-12-2007 @ 9:29AM
Chris Gilmer said...
The music makes it so exciting!
Reply
7-12-2007 @ 9:34AM
Martin said...
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.
Reply
7-12-2007 @ 9:44AM
Grammar freak said...
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.
Reply
7-12-2007 @ 9:57AM
Josh said...
Hey, I used to work for that company!
Reply
7-12-2007 @ 10:07AM
Laydros said...
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.
Reply
7-12-2007 @ 1:08PM
bill weaver said...
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.
Reply
7-12-2007 @ 1:17PM
Markus Trapp said...
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 ;-)
Reply
7-12-2007 @ 2:14PM
Diddle said...
Oooh - all the Times New Roman is hurting my eyes! O_O
Reply
7-12-2007 @ 7:13PM
IFeelOld said...
I remember the internet like that (actually, in 1994 my browser of choice was LYNX, so think white on black with no pics) but I definitely don't remember anything loading as fast as it does in that video, but that may have to do with the vintage 386 IBM Microchannel machine with the ever popular 2400bps modem.
But, on the flip side, I do remember that time as being amazing due to the enormous amount of data instantly available to us in the new World Wide Web. By comparison, it is a pittance to what is now available though.
For the record, my email address in 1994 was something that had a bunch of suffixes like k12.us, and I liked Gopher.
Reply
7-13-2007 @ 2:41AM
Rick said...
I wish more people understood that "beg the question" does NOT mean "raise the question" or "prompt the question." (And if you stop and think for a minute, what the heck could it even mean to "beg a question"?? The very concept is absurd. Maybe what is meant is "does beg for an answer.") To beg the question is to commit the logical fallacy of engaging in a circular argument by assuming that one's premiss is true. E.g., Abortion is wrong. Why? Because it's wrong to murder. The flaw is that it assumes that abortion is murder, which is the very thing at issue. Please folks - try to improve English, not ruin it.
Reply
7-13-2007 @ 2:41AM
Rick said...
I wish more people understood that "beg the question" does NOT mean "raise the question" or "prompt the question." (And if you stop and think for a minute, what the heck could it even mean to "beg a question"?? The very concept is absurd. Maybe what is meant is "does beg for an answer.") To beg the question is to commit the logical fallacy of engaging in a circular argument by assuming that one's premiss is true. E.g., Abortion is wrong. Why? Because it's wrong to murder. The flaw is that it assumes that abortion is murder, which is the very thing at issue. Please folks - try to improve English, not ruin it.
Reply
7-13-2007 @ 8:53AM
Peter said...
Brad,
How do you write a technology related blog and not know who Digital Equipment Corportation (DEC) was?
Reply
7-13-2007 @ 8:53AM
Waldo said...
Damn, what is this Web crap.
Long live GOPHER!
W
Reply
7-13-2007 @ 8:54AM
sal said...
pretty much the same as todays websites except they are not riddled with ads and garbage flash animations .
Reply
7-13-2007 @ 8:54AM
Markus Trapp said...
@ #19: Thanks, good advice, I just downloaded the Mosaic-Browser.
Reply
7-13-2007 @ 8:54AM
AsktheAdminDotCom said...
Talk about nostalgia! I was just connected to a commodore 64 bbs. What a great day. Now back to my 10mb connection :)
Your friends @ http://www.asktheAdmin.com
Reply
7-13-2007 @ 8:54AM
bigwangtheory said...
Yeah, back in 1994 I remember Wang being huge. Massive. Now I use Valtrex.
Reply