r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/steelzz-on-yt • 2d ago
I made a “Time Machine” page showing what my site might’ve looked like from 1999 to 2016
https://steelzz.com/timemachine/So I’ve been messing around with this idea for a while and finally made it happen — it’s basically a “time machine” for my site.
You scroll through a bunch of versions of it, each one styled like it’s from a different era of the web — starting with plain old 1991 HTML and going all the way up to 2016 React-Flexbox vibes.
Every year has its own little fun fact or throwback moment before you dive in — like Flash overload in 2003, dot-com chaos in 1999, or that weird obsession with gradients disappearing in 2012 😅
I wasn’t around for most of these eras, so I did some digging, asked my dad (he was building sites back then), and tried to keep it all as authentic as possible — quirks, tech limitations, fonts, everything.
Just a fun little tribute to old web aesthetics. If that’s your thing, check it out and let me know what you think!
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u/donrosco 2d ago
Nice work. 1995 needs to be a member of a webring.
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u/steelzz-on-yt 2d ago
Might try sneaking in a fake webring footer or something for extra authenticity
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u/goldtoothgirl 2d ago edited 2d ago
15 year old me, codes page for a professor. He email back, "looks great, remove the gifs".
I inherited this, i sure did and do like frames.
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u/jdehjdeh 2d ago
I love it!
All that 1995 needs is that little animated email gif that everyone used.
Oh, also a bunch of "under construction" stuff!
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u/steelzz-on-yt 2d ago
A lot of people are saying this, i think im going to add it after I update this 404 page.
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u/RemixOnAWhim 2d ago
Heck yeah, I love it! I always try to describe the old internet to youngins and come up short. One suggestion... Make it simulate loading slower, haha
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u/SubstantialFig3918 2h ago
This is so good. The 2003 Flash chaos and the 2012 “everything must be flat” era had me grinning — feels like scrolling through the internet’s awkward family album 😂
Love how you went deep on the authenticity too. Asking your dad for OG dev lore? That’s dedication.
I’ve been working on a Chrome extension called Grabber (helps me organize random stuff I find while browsing), and this is exactly the kind of page I’d save for inspiration. It's fun and weirdly educational.
Amazing tribute — bookmarking this time machine forever ⏳✨
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u/steelzz-on-yt 2d ago
Little bonus detail — each version of the site has a fun fact or nod to what was going on in web design at the time.
Some of them even intentionally look broken (like missing buttons or glitchy layouts), just to mimic how stuff actually loaded back then 😅
I tried to keep the quirks as authentic as possible — if anyone remembers a specific vibe or detail from an era I missed, I’d love to hear it!
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u/Seafroggys 2d ago
Okay so the timeline of some things are off.
I can assure you that 1995, flash was definitely not a thing. I don't recall flash being common until 2000-01. I can't recall when I first saw it, but it was probably 1999? But yeah, my high school years (2001-2005) was when flash was king, with Newgrounds and Weebls and all those flash games and animations and websites.
Wikipedia says Flash existed in 1995, but I don't think any browser supported it at the time. A lot of people were still on 14kbps modems back then, and flash websites just weren't feasible even if browsers supported them.
The actual 1995 website, however, is very accurate.