WWWTXT: archive web documents 1980-94 biennium

The artist, who specializes in digital art, Daniel Wren (Daniel Rehn) from Los Angeles has another unusual hobby. In 2011, he opened a website WWWTXT , which collects digital documents of a bygone era: from 1980 to 1994.

Surprisingly, even at that time, Internet users talked about cyberpunk, digital currencies, online sex, and other advanced topics.

Now WWWTXT collection contains more than 100 GB of documents and continues to grow. Basically, its supplement texts and pictures from Usenet (analogue Fido) and BBS - electronic bulletin boards, predecessors of modern websites. Before the advent of the web people to communicate and share files on the BBS. To get to one of them, it was necessary to dial a modem and a specific phone number to connect to the computer operator station.



Probably today WWWTXT - the largest collection of its kind on the Internet. Maybe in the Google index or Internet Archive, there are more documents, but WWWTXT contains a thematic selection of a particular era.



Computer Configuration sample 1988 г. I>

Daniel Wren himself well acquainted with the time. In mid-1980 at the age of 9 or 10 years, he запустил own BBS in Illinois, where lecturing various demos and copies of digital art. To this end, he called on other major BBS in New York or San Francisco, downloaded files from there and put them at home. Thus, users do not have to spend money on long-distance communication.



The advertisement LLamasoft, 1984 г. I>

Daniel Rehn admits that what he saw on the BBS «completely changed his personality and influence the future life." Probably, this can tell everyone who in those years was the modem. As one of the users in August 1985: «Здесь strange things. Very, very strange ».

Source: geektimes.ru/post/243733/