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.
This is going on my bookmarks toolbar. Thank you!
Design is too mobile responsive
The great irony is: websites in the 90’s would have been made to cater to resolutions of 640x480. Fancy monitor resolutions went up to 1024x768.
So, viewing it on a mobile screen should be nicer than what a full computer in the 90’s could offer.
’90s websites would have had terrible touch target sizes
Sorry but were you alive in the 90s? That tile background is way too big. Take it down to 128 x 128 anything bigger than that takes too long on my 56k. Also I don’t see one frame or table border.
frame
Man, how did I forget those abominations?
Saved so much time and bandwidth reloading several kilobytes of headers and menus.
You 100% need a visitor counter at the bottom.
deleted by creator
And a guestbook, though thats a bit trickier nowadays with bots everywhere.
maybe even a fake gif one, that speeds up more and more until it explodes
@ajsadauskas @asklemmy Add a Web ring link … even if it’s just a link back to your site
Heres a site in the similar vain, https://anarchymeanything.com/
Guest book,
Webring
Visit counter
Good luck, i like the older internet so much nostalgia
@ajsadauskas@aus.social @asklemmy@lemmy.ml uh, nice vibes!
There is not enough contrast or too much contrast between your text and the background.
What I’m trying to say is that is too easy on the eyes to read the text. 😂
My wife just added that it should have some background music.
Yes, the background pattern and colours should be chosen to actively interfere with reading any text on the page. For example, it’s great if there’s large patches of black in the background and the text is also black.
Flashing is also key. A lot of text should be flashing and there should be unreadable ticker tape text at random places.
deleted by creator
@JimmyBigSausage I’m not sure if you’re replying to the right comment here?
deleted by creator
@ajsadauskas @neil @asklemmy Looks amazing!
My only question is about whether drop shadows on text was prominent. I’m having trouble remembering how that effect would have been accomplished in the 90s, since I don’t think CSS got it until later. Would it have been something on the <font> tag only supported in Internet Explorer?
@ajsadauskas @neil @asklemmy As for chat, probably the best way to do that today is to use Web Sockets but style it to look like frames or a Java applet on the page.
BOOTSTRA.386 (okay, on second thought, that’s more the 80s and doesn’t really fit.)
<marquee>some text</marquee>
<embed src=“somesong.mid”>
Modern browsers have dropped support for the marquee tag, so you’ll have to reimplement it in JavaScript.
@neidu2 Done :)
I don’t exactly remember, but it’s possible to have the embed start automatically and not show the player. I would suspect that <embed src=“ugfyi.mid” autoplay=“true” hidden=“true”> is at least partially correct or similar.
@ajsadauskas @asklemmy
The Netscape logo at the bottom killed meAwards! Everything had awards back then!
Nice project. I like the nostalgia. 👍
After some searching I learned that Tripod and Angelfire still exist today as web hosting providers. Your page could have a few more Under construction signs here and there.
