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.
You 100% need a visitor counter at the bottom.
maybe even a fake gif one, that speeds up more and more until it explodes
Are you in a webring with other 90’s websites?
@HobbitFoot I’m not yet, but if there’s a good one then I’d be happy to add it…
I second this, they need a webring, it’s what I went looking for.
Remember ``````? And maybe add some dancing hamsters?
Not one person suggested a marquee. Wow.
Granted, the HTML tag is deprecated in the spec, but you can easily set up a marquee using CSS.
Visitor counter
Awards! Everything had awards back then!
Iframes with more iframes inside.
Regular frames, not iframes. We didn’t have iframes back then!
And a “Break out of frames” link
“Break out of frames” link
That is a memory I have suppressed.
Signed the guestbook :)
I think it could do with a very literal under construction image, with some sort of machinery- every website seemed under construction at the time!
@ajsadauskas @asklemmy Add a Web ring link … even if it’s just a link back to your site
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.
some text
@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 is at least partially correct or similar.
It’s readable on mobile. You need to unfix that immediately. The font must not appear bigger than 5px. Responsive layout is forbidden.
Also, no popups. That’s both retro and not retro enough. (Or were those introduced for the first round in the early 2000’s? I don’t know, I’m too young)
For the authentic experience, you need two versions of the site: An Internet Explorer version, and a Netscape version. The two browsers didn’t support the same features back then, so a lot of sites would have two different versions.
Also run it on your own server and limit the transfer speed (can set a rate limit in the Nginx config) so it loads slowly :D
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