My First Website
Does anyone remember their first website? I mean, really remember?
I think I remember my first website more than I remember other “firsts” in my life. What better way to encompass the 90s than in a website loading on Netscape 1.0. As a thirteen year old brimming with optimism and geeky passtimes, I always tried to find ways to marry several interests in one. The web, even back then, was a way to do all that.
My first website was a Sailor Moon fan site. Coded together on Microsoft Notepad on a Pentium I computer on Windows 95, using screenshots and images downloaded on a 14.4 baud modem. The search engine of choice was Web Crawler I remember clicking to download a 200KB image and leaving to have lunch. This first website was a dark color schemed one — basically, also showing my bias with light on dark designs early on.
It was also hosted on Geocities back when they only offered 2MB of space. I believe the site was nestled in a community called “Tokyo Ginza” page 5437. I, unfortunately, do not have any screenshots to show you of this beauteous creation. It has been lost to the abyss of the web and old junky computer parts.
What was your first website?
11 blabs to My First Website
Leslie said...
on 09/03/2008 11:39 AM
My first site was called “Warzone’s Web” (my Doom handle) that had a spectacular heading made in Microsoft Word. Yes. MS Word ftw!
It was hosted on my school’s server. I’ve tried many times to find a copy but apparently its gone. I have other very early work, but that was the very first trip to the dark side.
Jeff Smith said...
on 09/03/2008 11:56 AM
I remember my first site being what we’d now call a blog. That was back when I was very interested in philosophy (my high school years) so a lot of my writing was feeble attempts to make sense of complicated social issues. At that point I was very much into reading books like ‘Utopia’ and Richard Bach’s ‘Illusion’.
It was also a light on dark scheme. I recall a black background, white text, and a lot of deep red colors. Coded of course using Notepad, but I think I was lucky enough to have a 28.8kbps modem at the time. :)
I seem to remember it being hosted on Xoom - not even sure if they’re still around anymore. I don’t know if I’d even want to see a screenshot of it. :)
Kyle said...
on 09/03/2008 12:14 PM
Oh I remember well. My very first site was a personal site on Angelfire, which is where I started digging in and learning HTML in their “Advanced Editor”.
Then I moved to Geocities too—we were neighbors! I was at /SunsetStrip/Mezzanine.
One of my very first websites was for my “band” in Grade 8, and I recently found out it’s still up! But you’ll have to beg me for the URL. A lot of animated GIFs, a guestbook, and everything wrapped in a center tag!
I used notepad until Netscape Composer came out—that rocked my world, at the time!
Karen said...
on 09/03/2008 01:41 PM
My first site was soulsuck.com (in 1999) and had a translation of Dante’s Inferno, some personal stuff and was mostly this gothy emo personal page.
Notepad and the “Learn HTML in 24 Hours” book were my tools of choice.
Jason Beaird said...
on 09/03/2008 01:59 PM
Haha. Fun stories. Our first computer (that could access the internet - the Apple IIc didn’t count) was a Packard Bell 486sx from Wal-Mart. It didn’t have a modem, but a teacher at my junior high let me borrow a 2400 baud so I could log into IRENE (an educational BBS). It wasn’t long before I convinced my family to get a “proper” 28.8 modem so we could access the internet via NetZero.
I don’t know if it was my first website, but definitely one of the first was a site I made in 1997 that was all about soap shoes and freestyle walking tricks. Geeky I know, but it took a lot of grocery bagging money to buy those shoes and I was excited. I think that site was somewhere in SunsetStrip like Kyle’s. I also had a Xoom account, but that account got banned in 1999 because I used it to store an MP3. :( Took all night to copy that file up there, too.
Lea said...
on 09/03/2008 03:02 PM
These stories are great and I love how some of us had very similar starts.
Haha, Jason, I LOL’d when I read your Xoom site got taken down for the lone mp3 file that took all night to upload. Also, crazy coincidence, my Pentium I was ALSO a Packard Bell!
I also had a XOOM site. I think I kept trying to move my free sites place to place to figure out which was the best one.
Rich said...
on 09/03/2008 03:08 PM
Mine was a fan page of Street Fighter. :) I used AOL’s Hometown, and the page I last left on its server is still shockingly there. Unfortunately, it’s not very interesting: just a single HTML page from 2004 redirecting it to my blog at the time.
I probably deleted the original files, so it’s a shame that I don’t have anything left of it.
snoe said...
on 09/03/2008 03:21 PM
My first was a magnificent specimen built in Netscape Communicator Gold and hosted on Geocities too. It was full of blinking text and animated web search remnants. Woooooowy! What’s funnier is that it somehow led to a really good job.
Matthew Pennell said...
on 09/04/2008 02:45 AM
My first site was for a film production company I was setting up - I think I read “Learn HTML In 24 Hours” and took it from there.
It had 17 frames (I was blown away by the potential of framesets!), and the graphics were bitmaps created in MS Paint IIRC.
And of course it proudly displayed a badge at the top: “This site is best viewed in 800x600 in Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4 or Netscape Navigator version 4”.
Lea said...
on 09/04/2008 09:22 AM
Matthew—17 frames, wow. I didn’t know one could actually squeeze that much in for one site! Hahaha…
Meanwhile, I also remember being fascinated with Meta-Refresh to create “slideshow-like” stuff online—with a hidden frame that auto-started music, too, of course.
No purpose. No use. Just because I could.
Maaike said...
on 09/22/2008 05:26 AM
I built my first website in late 1995 with an editor called Arachnophobia and it was hosted at the /Soho part of Geocities. It was a personal website with some stories, quotes I liked and midi background music. Oh and it had a black background with tiny stars in it *and* there was gif animation of a cat. In other words: this site being lost for ever is A Good Thing :-)
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