The mid ’90s saw an explosion in the number of Internet connected users, but what did the folks who were online in the late ’80s and early ’90s chat about? One twitter feed curates the best of the pre-1995 Internet era.
It was an age well prior to the explosion of the visual internet, with text the primary communication medium; a necessary evil thanks to the speeds of the day. The wwwtxt project curates the thoughts of those publishing to newsgroups, early online services and very early hypertext documents. It’s curated by electronic artist Daniel Rehn and primarily acts as a contrast between the Web of today and that early public Internet. Sure, there were networked systems prior to Rehn’s particular experiment, but getting hold of those sources — if they even exist any more — would be a nightmare.
wwwtxt is a fascinating resource; just to drag up a few choice tweets — all of which have their original date of transmission as part of the tweet to give you context:
Artists have been struggling with text based media and slow scan transmission. The limitations of the technology are frustrating. ☯92JAN
If you’re against advertising on the net, now’s the time to speak up. It’s becoming more and more of an issue. ☯93NOV
Subscribing to lists with reckless abandon can clog a mailbox and provide a convenient black hole to vacuum up all your spare time. ☯92DEC
Even with all the screens and wires and chips and lines it still comes down to people talking to each other. ☯92FEB [wwwtxt]