. . : : z i n e : : . .

Spring is coming into its own, although not everyone feels it - perhaps the authorities are in no hurry to extend the contract with good weather in order to save money. The first week is free, and then a subscription, everything is as always. But we do not give up and continue our journey through the small web, where instead of algorithms, meaning rules, and instead of the thirst for clicks - the thirst for knowledge.

This issue is special because we decided to dive into intellectual entertainment reading, which will surely appeal to everyone who appreciates the concept of the small web. And we will also remember the technologies and ideas that once shaped our view of the world and the Internet. Those who remember the nineties will probably recognize familiar techniques and concepts, and those who are just discovering this layer of culture may discover unexpected parallels with the present.

But we do not only look to the past — on the contrary, we constantly keep our finger on the pulse of the technologies that surround us everywhere. They were either with us before, or accompany us now, imperceptibly intertwining with everyday life. In this issue, we will talk about the decisions and approaches that made the Internet what it was before. In each issue, we traditionally make it clear which of these ideas can be useful today, in an era when digital freedom is becoming a rarity, and conscious choice is a necessity.

Our magazine is not just a collection of texts, but an attempt to comprehend and return the Internet to its roots. Here, the meaning is important, not the number of views, here the word is valued above algorithms, and self-expression is not limited by the framework of trends.

Together we continue to build a world where you can be yourself, where each site is a small independent universe reflecting the thoughts and aspirations of its creator.

So get comfortable, put aside all unnecessary things and dive into reading. Let this issue bring you pleasant memories and new discoveries, remind you of forgotten ideas and, perhaps, inspire you to create something of your own.

Have a nice reading and a good day!

Congratulations, rookie, you're a webmaster now. Only a select few get here - those who've mastered two FrontPage 98 lessons and dared to write `<blink>`.

First things first: forget about CSS. It's for wimps. We write websites like pros, in bare HTML. We mark up tables like graves in a military cemetery.

Never, do you hear me, never, use proper indentation in your code. If anyone can read your source code without gagging, you've failed as a professional.

Buttons should be as big as the fists of an angry system administrator. Each button is adorned with the obligatory `<marquee>` with the text "Welcome to my site!"

Color scheme? It's simple: red text on a blue background, the background texture is from the native Windows 95. The user should suffer.
The site must greet the guest with a MIDI melody. The worse the quality, the better. It is desirable that it be a terrible loop from Doom, launched via `<bgsound>`.

Navigation? Forget it. All the links in a bunch, all with underlining. No "relevant" pages. Let the user enjoy the quest.

The font size varies from microscopic `<font size="1">` to font cannonade `<font size="7">`. All headings are required in `<h1>`, otherwise no one will know that they are important.

The site should take at least five minutes to load. To do this, add huge GIF animations, loading indicators and endlessly blinking "Under Construction" icons.

We must insert a fake visitor counter. The more numbers on it, the more respected the resource. Deception is welcome.

Pictures? Only in BMP format. Let it weigh half a gigabyte, no big deal. And if you want to seem "advanced", use JPG with a compression level of 10%.

Don't forget to make a guestbook. In 99% of cases, there will be entries like "Hi, cool site!" and "How to uninstall Windows?". A place where users will write what they really think of you.

If you haven't yet inserted a Java applet with falling snow or a rotating 3D model of a skull - why did you even sit down at the keyboard?

The best logo is text made in WordArt. Ideally with the "Stretch" effect, so that it looks like graffiti on a fence.

Your site should contain at least one banner "Best viewed in Internet Explorer 4.0" and a "Add to favorites!" button.

Post an FAQ. Let it have one question: "Why does the site take so long to load?", and it will be rhetorical.

If you decide to update the site, never delete old versions. Hide them in the `/old`, `/backup` and `/temp` folders so that you can randomly tangle them up years later.

When you host a site, choose a service with advertising banners on half the screen. The user must win at the casino, close 30 pop-ups and only then see your content.

Never, do you hear, never update the site! The best webmaster of the last century is the one whose site died in 1999, but still opens in the Internet Archive. Then you have officially achieved perfection.

Add an "About Me" page to the site. It should consist of one image stolen from the Internet and the phrase: "Hi, my name is Sergey, and I make websites!"

Make a "Useful Links" section. Add 50 broken links there and one link to your second site, which looks even worse.

A real professional always puts a frame around each image. `<border=5>` is the sign of a master!

The more `<hr>` on a site, the cooler it is. Let the user feel that he has entered a new era of web design every three paragraphs.

Passwords and private areas? Of course! Access via JavaScript popup with the password "admin".

The gallery should load in a separate window that cannot be closed. The user should suffer!

The mouse cursor? Replace it with a custom huge bright green one with fire animation.

The 404 error page should contain three gifs, a MIDI melody and the phrase "You've come to the wrong place!".

A pop-up window with "Are you sure you want to leave my site?" before closing the browser is a must-have element of a professional approach.

The guestbook should resemble a forum from the times of Ancient Rome. Whoever wrote last, wins.

The status bar should blink and show phrases like "Warning: virus download started!"

The background can be bright yellow with green text. This is not a mistake - it's art!

And finally - if someone dares to say that your site is outdated, just say: "You just don't understand the depth of retro design."

While others wanted to be firefighters, astronauts, rock stars or, God forbid, successful people, I passionately dreamed of a lab coat, thin glasses and a serious expression indicating the scientific significance of my existence. Because as a child, I dreamed of becoming a British scientist. It was the same naive dream that guides a child through the years, filling his existence with light and hope.

I was not inspired by firefighters - too dangerous, astronauts - too pretentious. I was not attracted by the glory of rock stars - too noisy. Even successful businessmen seemed to me something distant and incomprehensible, the desire for knowledge was the only logical vector. Science, in my opinion, was the last stronghold of meaning in this chaotic world. No matter what a person does, the facts will always remain unchanged. Two plus two is always four, and boiling water always burns your hand. You can build a future on this.

And I saw myself in this future — in a perfectly starched lab coat, with thin glasses on the bridge of my nose, a serious expression on my face and an eternal cup of coffee in my hand. In my fantasies, I endlessly went to scientific conferences, received grants, made important discoveries, changed the world for the better. After all, who, if not me, could figure out why a sandwich always falls down with the buttered side down? Or why socks disappear one by one after washing? Or finally prove that sitting on a cold floor has nothing to do with pneumonia?

In short, while others dreamed of fame, money and adventure, I dreamed of laboratory research, complex formulas and endless experiments. It seemed to me that this was the true meaning of life — to discover new laws of nature and feel like a part of the great scientific process.

At that time, I didn’t know that real science is not only discoveries, but also endless applications for funding, red tape, crazy colleagues and experiments, the consequences of which can make you regret your birth. And that it doesn’t concern me at all…
But I learned about this later. Much later.

I was born in a typical gray city, and my parents dreamed that I would become an engineer, a teacher or, at worst, a musician. If music didn’t work out, I could try myself in journalism - after all, someone has to write about dirty roads and new officials who have taken office. And if things didn’t work out at all, then at least a cook in a school cafeteria. After all, hot tasty lunches are also a great contribution to society.

But another destiny beckoned me. I didn’t want to feed schoolchildren, I wanted to feed humanity with great discoveries. After all, the main thing is faith in science and boundless persistence.

The first thing I did was try to change my name to something more British. The proud "Oliver Newton" appeared in my passport. True, problems with the bank card immediately arose, but are great discoveries made without sacrifices?

To become a British scientist, you need to behave like a British scientist.
And I began to behave accordingly. Tea with milk replaced all my drinks, and I inserted the phrase "evidence-based" into conversation more often than scum inserted swear words. Soon, people around me stopped greeting me, which, however, only strengthened my scientific aura.

After all, even to determine that water is wet, a British scientist needs at least a million pounds. So I decided to attract the attention of potential investors. The first study was on the topic of "How does the moisture content of socks affect the adoption of fateful decisions." I hoped that it would be appreciated in the highest scientific circles...

I had to act radically. I started to sensationalize. I discovered that people die in 100% of cases if you wait long enough. I came up with a formula for success, which boiled down to the number of subscribers on social networks. I conducted a study on the effect of self-hypnosis on appetite, but after three days without food, I lost consciousness and was hospitalized.

After being discharged, I made another discovery: hospital food contains fewer calories than in a scientific career. This allowed me to lose a few kilos and almost come closer to the image of a typical British intellectual.

At the next stage, I decided to do something simpler. I contacted a local journal with an idea about a “phenomenal discovery” that the more a person works, the less he rests. My article was rejected, politely citing the lack of reviewers capable of appreciating the depth of thought.

The disappointment was great, but I did not give up. I decided to conduct a new, revolutionary study - to determine how similar an exhausted person is to a corpse. The experiment was extremely successful, especially for the morgue staff, who mistook me for a client and almost registered me. More precisely, not so: they registered me, but then a few hours later they were hospitalized.

After some time, I realized that a scientific career requires connections. But British scientists I knew were rare, and local scientists for some reason preferred to work in factories, in taxis, and trusted the labor exchange more than education and ambition.

Then I realized: I needed international fame. I created a loud headline: "Scientist discovers that after death comes the end of life!" and sent it to popular tabloids. There were no responses, but the article somehow became a very popular meme.

One day, I decided to check whether the amount of food eaten affects the desire to work. The results were astounding: after a heavy lunch, the brain refused to turn on, and after a couple of hours, natural hibernation set in. This discovery gave me a reason to apply for a grant to study office procrastination, but the answer was short: "You're just lazy."

Without giving up hope, I took on a new study - whether it is possible to speed up time if you do not look at it. For several weeks, I periodically sat with my eyes blindfolded, but for some reason the utility bills did not disappear.

The next was a revolutionary discovery: if you stand in line for a long time, you begin to hate humanity. This seemed obvious, but required scientific confirmation. For several days, I studied the reactions of people at a local clinic. The conclusion was unambiguous - patience has a limit, after which patients turn into a pack of angry wolves.

I also tried to find out if it is possible to fall asleep faster if you take a comfortable position. During the experiment, 132 different limb positions were tested, including the "curled shrimp" and "lying Buddha" poses, and the "doggy style" pose. The only thing I found out was that sleep actually does occur after the neck is bent at an angle of over 90 degrees, but in a hospital ward.

Another important discovery: if you search for the meaning of life for a long time, you can lose your job. I spent two months studying the treatises of philosophers and watching videos of street dogs, but in the end I only received a letter from my boss with an offer to continue searching for meaning at the labor exchange.

When I decided to check whether it is possible to distinguish cheap alcohol from expensive, the experiment ended at the station, where I asked the police to conduct a double-blind test. They refused, but kindly reminded me that my theory that alcohol slows down reaction is correct - especially if you need to react to shouts asking you to leave the room, which also contained words that increased the effect of the importance of what was said, and significantly increased speed.

The social media experiment was no less enlightening. I tried running an account where I posted only scientific facts. The first two posts got three likes (one from my mom), and the third only gained mass interest after I accidentally posted it with the note “sensation: this fact killed 99% of scientists.”

I also decided to find out if it was possible to live for a month eating only food from vending machines. The first three days were fine, but then my stomach started protesting, and the machine started giving a “transaction error” when it saw my card. It turned out later that people in white coats call this “acute eating disorder.”

The insomnia experiment was extremely educational. For 72 hours, I didn’t sleep, waiting for my mind to start producing brilliant ideas. At the 50th hour, I understood the meaning of the universe, but forgot it when I was distracted by a cat. At the 60th hour, I felt like I was becoming a cat myself. At 70, I was already talking to a desk lamp. After 72 hours, my brain made the only right decision - to switch off.

My last great discovery was proof that if you don’t go outside for a long time, you can forget why you exist at all. I conducted an experiment, not leaving my apartment for a year. As a result, I stopped understanding why doors exist, was surprised every time I found clothes in the closet, and was genuinely shocked to see that after pulling back the curtains - the sun was shining outside. Perhaps this is how philosophers are born.

My enthusiasm waned over time, but there was still hope for popular recognition. So I organized a lecture at the local House of Culture. The only visitor was my former school teacher, who came to make sure that I was truly hopeless.
But real success came when I discovered that my photo appeared on social networks with the caption: “This man is living proof that science does not save you from stupidity.” The post received thousands of likes, and in the comments I was called a “God-level British scientist.”

I realized that my dream had come true. Although not in the sense I expected.

Now I drink tea with milk every day, behave confidently in the face of failures, and prepare for the next scientific breakthrough. For example, I want to prove that if you stare at the refrigerator for a long time, food does not appear in it.

The scientific community is clearly not ready for such discoveries. But I know: the main thing is not the result, but persistence. After all, a real British scientist must suffer. And, preferably, with a sense of deep intellectual superiority.

Few people remember, and those who did not live through it do not even know that along with the forgotten, but still existing and used protocols, there is a protocol called WAP. Today I will tell you what kind of protocol it is, when it appeared, how it was used and why it sank into oblivion.

And I would like to teach you how to make WAP sites, but the magazine, although technical, is still not for manuals on the intricacies of certain protocols, so I will only mention some aspects, hoping to arouse your interest for independent information search, because the protocol is very old and for weak devices, and therefore quite simple. You just need to sort out some confusion.

So, get out your push-button mobile phones, and for those who do not have them - they can now be bought for 20 US dollars.
In the distant distant times, when many were not yet born, the Internet at home was not so necessary for a wide range of people, and the era of mobile phones was just gaining momentum and there was a need to receive information about exchange rates, stock indices, weather, news, and even to read mail. All this usually required, at a minimum, a computer with a modem and a telephone socket. And even with a laptop, people whose work was related with frequent and long trips needed to promptly receive this or that information. And not at all to download a cool melody from the movie Matrix or change the picture instead of the inscription of the name of the mobile operator on the screensaver measuring 101 by 27 pixels. At that time, mobile phones could only make calls, send and receive SMS, and, at best, synchronize a notebook and organizer with a computer via an IR port.

However, since the early 1990s, some devices had the ability to work as a CSD modem connected to a computer via the previously mentioned IR port or data cable, thus allowing access to the Internet. But it was expensive and the speed did not exceed 9.6 kilobits (not even kilobytes) per second. So, the phone, like a dial-up modem, dialed a number determined by the cellular service provider, and switched to data transmission mode over the voice channel.

WAP appeared in 1998, when several companies, namely Openwave (former Phone.com, and before that Unwired Planet), Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia organized a non-profit organization Wapforum, whose task was to work on a standard for simplified Internet pages for weak mobile devices. Later, other mobile device manufacturers joined this consortium, supported this idea and began to build WAP support into their phones.

At that time, the market was still dominated by mobile devices with a small monochrome screen that could display 3-5 lines of medium-sized font. Such devices mostly did not have a powerful processor and much enough memory, but they could work on one charge for a week or even more (and there was no need to invent power banks). Therefore, it was necessary to create such a protocol specification so that mobile phone browsers could work in such conditions.

So Openwave became the main supplier of WAP browsers (in cooperation with manufacturers) for mobile devices, although some mobile device manufacturers developed browsers themselves, according to the specification. And yes, they worked natively, and were developed for each phone firmware individually due to the very limited resources of the devices, that is, there was no common framework for all devices, as was the case with Java (J2ME) applications. But even with the advent of Java in phones, native launch was still practiced, and not as a J2ME application.

But let's get back to the protocol. There is always confusion here, so let's figure out what is what.
Let's start with the transport layer, through which WAP sites (and, for example, mail) directly get to your device. At that time, there were 2 ways to connect to the Internet: CSD and later GPRS. Both protocols allow you to be connected to the same Internet where regular websites, mail, messengers and other services work.

In the case of CSD, you need a dial-up number to access the Internet, which is provided by a cellular service provider and is usually charged by time. In the case of GPRS - an access point (Access Point Name - APN) and charged for received and transmitted data.
Although WAP is called a protocol, in fact, it uses http (or https) as a protocol with one small difference: for it to work on mobile devices, a WAP gateway is required. Previously, the WAP gateway was also provided by the cellular service provider, but in most cases, it is not necessary to use it, especially now that they are no longer provided.

To keep things simple, the WAP gateway receives requests from your WAP browser in binary form (i.e. not plain text, as with regular web sites), converts them into plain text understandable to the http server where the WAP site is hosted, after receiving a response from the http server in plain text format, converts it back into binary and sends it to the WAP browser on your phone (via any connection, CSD or GPRS).
This procedure allowed you to save traffic and increase speed, since the data transmitted and received in binary format is less than in plain text.

In common, WAP sites were hosted on regular web servers, in the same regular Internet where desktop websites for computers are. From the web server side, it was only necessary to configure the correct transmission of the document type for WML and be able to send the index page in this format.

And what is WML (Wireless Markup Language)? This is a markup language for WAP sites, the same as HTML for websites, only greatly simplified due to the requirements for the hardware of mobile devices of that time and the data transmission channel. Like HTML of the first versions (1.0, 2.0, 3.2), WAP uses the same tags for text formatting, for example <b> and <i> for bold and italic.
And although WML is generally similar to HTML, there are some differences related to display on small device screens and the need to connect to the Internet each time to load a page.

Namely, such mandatory tags as deck and card were introduced. One WML document can only have one deck, which contains one or more cards. Information from only one card is displayed on the screen. This is necessary so that the navigation on the site does not take a long time and fits harmoniously on a small screen without the need for long scrolls, and when switching between cards there is no need to reconnect to the Internet and download the document (call again, as it was in CSD).

Each card could contain its own title and navigation elements (go href, do) or actions.
Also, it was optional to use the "template" tag, which allowed you to set a common navigation template for all cards in the deck, this helped the WAP site developer to describe the template only once, and saved the size of the WML document, so as not to enter the code into all cards.

Despite its similarity to HTML, WML, especially the first versions, was more different from HTML, for example, to set the font size, you could use the <big> and <small> tags. But I will not list all the tags here, it is beyond the scope of the article, but I will leave a link to the WML development guide - https://www.tutorialspoint.com/wml/index.htm

In subsequent versions, WML became more and more functionally similar to HTML.
By the way, about the size of WML documents, the size of one WAP page (document, not site) should not exceed 1400 bytes, but in binary form. That is, on the disk it can take up more space, and after binarization on the WAP gateway, it should fit into these 1400 bytes.
But in addition to text, links, and other elements, images in WBMP format were also supported, this is a monochrome format, into which you can still convert an image using imagemagick in Linux.

And since WAP is not some separate Internet, then maybe you can view WAP sites not only from mobile devices? Of course you can, but ordinary modern browsers are not suitable for this. Previously, Opera, which was still on the Presto engine, was able to display WAP sites on a computer, and for Linux you can use the Wapua browser.

There is a small life hack that, although it will not allow you to view a WAP site on a computer in a modern browser, will at least allow you to understand what this WAP site is about. To do this, open any web page in any browser, click Source View, and substitute the address of the WAP site, instead of the current one.

And also, you can create and place your WAP site on our hosting http://web1.0hosting.net and it will work on your mobile device. We also have a WAP gateway for this 135.181.118.15:9201 that you can use to access any working WAP sites from your device. And you can also visit our WAP site: http://wap.w10.host

Reading: How I read Frederic Beigbeder's "99 Francs”

When I decided to read this phenomenal book, I thought that this book would change the life of everyone who read it. After all, it is a masterpiece about the meaninglessness of advertising, about the decay of consumer society, about the emptiness of existence!
I made coffee, picked up my old tablet and... forgot it on the kitchen table. For a week. Because I hastily decided to rewatch the film and prolong the aftertaste. When the patterns in my head come together in some kind of logical lump, I decided that I could start reading.
When I finally started, I realized that the life of an advertiser is not at all like mine: senseless spending, cynicism and alcohol. Only unlike the hero of the book, I would never be paid for my alcoholism. Someone might think that this is great - you are having fun, and you are paid for it. Not everything is so clear))

However, after a couple of pages I realized that in front of me was not just a novel, but a self-destruction manual in a glossy cover. It had everything: cocaine, women, degradation and advertising slogans that made you feel ashamed for humanity. I tried to read slowly, but the text itself rolled into my consciousness, like bills into the pocket of an advertising genius.

Frederic Beigbeder, the author of this masterpiece, is a man who managed to simultaneously despise and adore the advertising world. He managed to print 300 pages of hatred for the industry that fed him, and then sell them in beautiful packaging with marketing slogans. It's as if a butcher staged a protest against the killing of animals, holding a juicy piece of meat in his hands. He worked in advertising himself, so his book is a confession of a man who splashed around in a pool of bleach for too long and suddenly remembered that he has skin. While reading, I imagined myself as the owner of a vegan restaurant that secretly feeds customers beef.
But enough metaphors.

While reading “99 Francs,” I felt my brain being soaked in cynicism, as if I were receiving a transfusion of Don Draper’s blood (from the TV series “Mad Men”), only without the aesthetics of the 60s. Beigbeder wrote as if his whole life was one big commercial that he had long since become sick of. Each paragraph was saturated with hatred for corporations, office rats, and his own reflection in the mirror. After the third chapter, I began to suspect that the author was either a genius or a person who spent too much time sniffing glue in the office. But it was impossible to stop reading.

And it’s a good thing I decided to watch the movie “99 Francs” beforehand, so that I could compare the sensations later. The difference between the book and the movie was about the same as between a bottle of good wine and a pot of alcohol with wheels of ecstasy. The film tried to be cheeky, but it looked more like an advertisement for itself.

The main character in the book was a bastard, but in the film he was turned into a cute bastard - the kind you want to have a drink with, but you don't want to leave him in your house. In the book he was drowning in cynicism, in the film he just rode it like a surfboard.
Jean Dujardin's performance as Octave Parango deserves a separate discussion. Dujardin is an actor who can play anyone, from a silent film character to a disgusting advertising man, and he will be equally convincing in all of them. In his performance, Octave turned out to be not just a cynical bastard, but a cynical bastard whom for some reason you want to hug.

In the book, Octave is the man you would be the first to throw out of the ship in a crash. In the film, he is more like that friend who constantly makes questionable decisions, but manages not to make you want to smother him with a pillow.

The ending in the book is a real slap in the face to anyone who has ever worked in an office. So sarcastic that I wanted to reread it again for moral consolation. Did he really write this?

The ending in the film was different, less cruel - because the viewer, apparently, is not ready for the truth. If the book can be compared to an electric chair, then the film is a high chair from IKEA: comfortable, beautiful, but not scary.

In the end, I closed the tablet, looked in the mirror and realized that I urgently need to share my impressions with you. But not just share, but motivate you to watch the film too. Although no, it is better to watch the film and read the book. And maybe reread another book by Beigbeder. But only after a bottle of good wine.

A web designer was riding on a train

When I started trying to make websites, it was the wild 2000s. The world was already spinning around progressive technologies: someone was already using PHP to replace the old Perl, someone was mastering JavaScript, and even shoving various multimedia into their pages. But what about me? I was sitting at my old laptop with a Pentium 166 MHz, with a proud 16 megabytes of RAM, under Windows 98. And when I say "sat", I mean that I was working on it fully, and not watching Notepad load, because it couldn't do anything faster anyway. No! Now it seems like something outlandish, but back then it was a fully functional combat machine, even with a multi-window browser, Photoshop, and serious code editors ))

The Internet back then was not what it is now. We didn't upload huge videos in one click, didn't use so many frameworks, huge amounts of graphics, and didn't even know what the cloud was. We downloaded our resources via Internet Explorer, and if a page loaded in less than a minute, that was already a success. I was sincerely happy when I finally found a free hosting with FTP access. True, uploading files to the server from my laptop was as much a pleasure as watching paint dry (I admit, I didn't watch it).

Website layout was a tough challenge back then, and I wasn't looking for easy ways. Table layout? It was my first and only love! `<table>` and `<tr>` were like brothers to me. `<td>` is my faithful friend, who always keeps everything in the right place. Back then, no one thought about the fact that "tables are not intended for layout". We just took them and used them, because it worked. (a web designer was riding a train <td> </td> <td> </td> <td> </td> )

But then "revolutionary" technologies came into our world. Excessive use of CSS suddenly started to gain popularity, and everyone started saying: "Tables are obsolete, my friend! Use `div` and `float`!" I looked at these floats, at their unpredictable behavior, at how they break the whole page if you do something wrong, and I thought: "Screw you!" I continued to layout with tables. After all, why do I need your `position: absolute` when I have `<colspan>` and `<rowspan>`?

But time went on. Tables began to die out like dinosaurs, although they did not die out, they were simply forgotten. Modern browsers started working with styles better and better, and search engines started to despise “old pages” as something archaic and unworthy. At some point, I even tried to adapt. I learned `float`, struggled with `clearfix`, tried `flexbox`, even glanced at `grid`. But every time I needed to make a simple layout, I yearned for the good old `<table>`.

However, I knew: you can’t go against the flow. Today, if you use tables for layout, you can be ridiculed in any IT chat. Front-end developers will harass you with shouts: “How could you! This is wrong!” And even if you explain a hundred times that you are simply TOO LAZY to figure out yet another new CSS syntax, no one will believe you. People will look at you as a person lost in the past who still runs Windows 98 in a virtual machine. Well, what can you do? I don't like HTML5.

Web design was developing strangely back then. At first, web design was simple and clear, like a light morning breakfast. The page consisted of logical blocks, text was text, pictures were pictures, links led where they were supposed to. But then designers came (probably from the printing industry, where else would they come from?), and decided that "so simple" was not sophisticated enough. Some kind of madness began: sites began to turn into New Year's trees, where everything blinked, scrolled, jumped and inevitably turned on music without asking. HTML seemed unfairly pushed into the background, turning it into a miserable framework on which they hung everything they could.

But that was not enough. At some point, someone decided that a site should not just be a site, but a multimedia show. They began to shove animations, videos, music, 3D elements and some interactive bells and whistles into it. The more, the better. It felt like web designers were competing to see whose website would burn more CPU power and shut down the browser faster...

And then this bastard Flash appeared. In small doses it was still bearable, but when websites started turning into solid Flash interfaces - that was the end. Give this designer more pills, because buttons that spin, blink and disappear when you hover over them - that's a clinical case.

This is at first glance, in fact, I love table layout for its simplicity, and for its predictability. For its brutal logic, where everything is exactly where you said. But I almost never use it. Because the world has changed. And I... I'm just too lazy to argue again with these new technologies that every week find a new "most convenient way" to layout pages (not really true, I'm still fighting).

History of the floppy disk: the great rise and miserable fall

The distant year of 1967. Smart people are sitting in the IBM labs in San Jose and racking their brains: how to create a cheap data carrier capable of loading microprograms for processors, mainframes and control modules? The main condition is the price is no more than five bucks, otherwise the bosses will not let it pass, and users will not appreciate it. Nobody wants to invest in a device that is easier to throw away than to replace. Reliability? Well, we would like to, of course, but let's be realistic.

More than half a century has passed, it is 2025, and floppy disks are still alive! Well, how alive... Somewhere on the outskirts of archives, in museums, and with especially persistent fans of retro technology who feed on nostalgia and soldering smoke. Why did this ancient data carrier not give up for so long? For us now it is a symbol of antediluvian technologies, like a matrix printer or a COM port. But in its time the floppy disk caused a technological revolution: punch cards became a thing of the past, kilometers of magnetic tape became unnecessary, and one plastic square solved all the problems.

The first floppy disk appeared in 1971, when IBM was racking its brains over how to load programs into the System/370 computer. The built-in memory, which was erased when the power was turned off, was not enough. Loading the software again every time was a real pain. IBM's memory manager, Al Shugart, remembered David Noble, a man who did not know what personal time was and worked 25 hours a day. It was he who proposed the concept of a flexible magnetic disk.

The first floppy disk was an 8-inch disk with an iron oxide coating. It was disposable: nothing could be written, only read. Capacity? 80 kilobytes is enough to fit a dozen high-quality ASCII art, a simple game, or a dozen and a half pages of documentation. The main problem was dust: any speck of dust destroyed the data instantly. The solution came unexpectedly - the floppy disk was given a "house" made of non-woven material, which wiped it with each rotation. Shugart recalled that without this idea, the floppy disk would have been doomed - like a Flappy Bird without wings.

IBM built a floppy disk drive into the System/370 and used floppy disks to load firmware. Everything seemed fine, but this design did not become a standard. In 1973, IBM released an improved version: now the floppy disk could not only read, but also rewrite data. The volume increased to 256 kilobytes, which is also not much, but better than nothing.

The 8-inch floppy disk was too big for desktop PCs. In 1976, the time came for the 5.25-inch floppy disk. How was this size chosen? Legend has it that IBM engineers were sitting late at a Boston bar when someone glanced at a napkin under a cocktail. It turned out to be the perfect size, and someone said, "What if..." Thus, a new format was born, and the bar was left without one napkin.

But development did not stop. In 1981, Sony introduced the 3.5-inch floppy disk - the one we remember. A reliable plastic case, a latch, 720 KB and then later even 1.44 megabytes of data, and even 2.88 MB. It seemed that the floppy disk was destined to live forever. But time was merciless. The quality of floppy disks fell, like the economy after a crisis. If the floppy disks of the 90s worked for years, then later copies could deteriorate after a couple of rewrites.

By the 2000s, floppy disks were starting to die out. Flash drives, CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, and cloud storage quickly replaced them. But manufacturers went further: they deliberately degraded the quality of floppy disks and disk drives so that people would finally abandon old technology. Yes, there is a conspiracy!

In 2011, Sony stopped producing floppy disks. In 2023, the last plant in Japan announced that supplies were running low. And now we live in a world where children don’t know what the save icon in Word meant. Floppy disks are gone, but their memory lives on in our hearts... and in the garages of old IT professionals, where dusty boxes lay around.

Up until 2019, the US Army stored data on nuclear weapons on 8-inch floppy disks. In Japan, government departments continued to use floppy disks for document management until 2021. A similar situation was observed in France and Germany, where old systems still rely on time-tested technologies. Why? Because floppy disks are cheap, simple, and provide reliable data storage, and floppy disk drives are easy to replace.

In mission-critical systems such as aviation, medical devices, and industrial automation, floppy disks remain relevant - there is simply nothing to replace them with if the equipment was developed decades ago. Perhaps in a hundred years, someone will laugh at flash drives the same way they laugh at floppy disks now, but for now this "relic of the past" continues its strange but stubborn existence.
And how long will flash memory last? We'll see. But one thing is for sure: no other storage medium has evoked as much nostalgia and devilry as the good old floppy disk.

Download history of one strategically important file

Vasily, known among his friends as Vasya_1337, was sitting in his small room, filled with the treasures of the era. The room was dark and cool, in front of him a monitor flickered, connected to an old 486 computer, which periodically showed the results of his hard thinking on the screen, then beeped a couple of times, and thought for a long time. On the wall hung a large rug with deer, next to it stood a cabinet filled with video cassettes with action movies, between some pirated copies one could see "Commandos" and "Rambo" bought at a flea market. Windows 95 started up, then a solemn welcoming sound played throughout the room, and Vasya prepared for the great deed.

Immersion in the Internet began with the melodic singing of the US Robotics 33.6k modem. Each connection turned into a ritual: first dialing a number, then mysterious howls, and then waiting. Vasya froze, looking at Netscape Navigator, which was slowly loading "Yahoo!" through the ISP server. The speed was a majestic 3 kilobytes per second, if the stars were aligned.

Today was a special day. Vasya had gotten hold of a secret list of sites on the FIDO board where you could find JPGs and even short AVIs. It was 1998, and such content was more valuable than gold. He typed the address with trembling fingers, and then - clicked on the link...

The download began. Three percent... seven... ten... Vasya was in anticipation, when suddenly - **CRACK** - the phone rang, the modem clicked, and the connection was lost. Vasya jumped up. It was grandma. "Hello! Vasya, are you calling from the city?! We have tariffs, by the way!" Grandma seemed to have some kind of remote access to the apartment, she sensed something was wrong with her ass, and periodically bothered everyone with various little things. It was understandable, there aren't many entertainment options in the suburbs.

Vasya took a deep breath, dialed the provider's number again, and returned to the site. The 15 kilobytes he had downloaded had to be restarted. Tears came to his eyes, but Vasya didn't give up. He knew: the path of a master is difficult, but the result is worth it. The "Masturbation" folder on disk D was nevertheless empty, waiting for new products.

In the background, down the hallway in the kitchen, an old "Donbass" refrigerator was making a groaning sound, reminding everyone that the demons of Soviet engineering were living inside it. Vasya glanced at his watch. It was already midnight. His parents were asleep, the modem was quietly beeping, and the picture was still loading. Gradually, a beautiful face became visible.

Suddenly, something popped and the monitor screen went dark. The electricity went out. Vasya screamed into the void. Somewhere on the street, twenty minutes later, local alcoholics were testing the strength of a transformer. Vasya sat in the dark, wondering if it was possible to restore the session, carefully tiptoed along the corridor to his dad's jacket, and, stealing his first cigarette in his life, went outside.

Half an hour later, the lights came back on. Vasya rushed to the computer, waited for it to load, launched Netscape and opened the page again. The technology of that time did not forgive shutdowns: everything started from scratch. 5%... 10%…
A demonic sound came from the speakers - ICQ notified about a new message. A friend on Fido, Dimon666, asked: "What, are you downloading?" Vasya answered with a nervous "yeah", hoping that Dimon would not send him the file. ICQ was famous for the fact that its “cuckoo!” could wake up even the dead.

At three o'clock in the morning, after many disconnections and connections, the file finally loaded.
His eyes were closing and his body was asking to go to bed, Vasya turned off the computer and lay down, and then just lay in bed and looked at the ceiling, listening to the Donbass refrigerator gather its courage again to survive another night.

Vasya was 15 years old, and his whole life was continuous suffering. At school he was considered a nerd, in the entryway - a mama's boy, and in Internet chats - a noob. He knew that his path was not easy: downloading pictures via a modem when his mother demands to free the line is a test of spirit, and not just digital labor.

Behind the wall, his father was snoring, who worked six days a week in production and always came home drunk. Yesterday he forgot to close the door to the toilet and fell asleep right on the rim of the toilet. Vasya spent a long time choosing between trying to wake him up or just enduring until the morning. In the end, he slouched and went outside to water the tree.

His mother didn't understand Vasya's interests either. She thought that the Internet was something pointless and very expensive, and that a computer was needed solely to "calculate salaries" or "play solitaire." When she once caught him downloading something suspicious, she interrogated him with partiality. He had to lie that he was looking for an essay on anatomy.

Vasya was an outcast at school. His classmates, who were punks, constantly teased him for wearing a sweater knitted by his grandmother. In the cafeteria, he was hit on the head with a tray, and once he even broke his glasses when he tried to dodge a thrown school bag. The teachers, of course, pretended that nothing was happening.

He had a dream - to save up money and buy a 1 GB hard drive. This would be salvation, this would be a "heavenly storage". But where to get the money? Vasya tried to sell floppy disks with games at school, but some high school student took his entire collection and promised to break his fingers if he complained.

There was only one way left - the Internet. Vasya had already heard of the term "webmaster". It was possible to make websites and earn money! True, for now his creations resembled sad text on a gray background, but he believed that one day he would succeed.
Tomorrow he will try again. Tomorrow he will start the modem again, pick up the mouse again and click on the cherished link again. The main thing is that grandma doesn't call. She always calls!

Here is our latest journey through the pages of Elpis. The issue turned out to be rich, full of memories. We looked into the past, remembered the technologies that once defined the appearance of the Internet, and thought about what awaits us in the future.

Spring is coming into its own, although perhaps not everyone has felt it yet. But in this issue we did not talk about the weather. We talked about meaning. About texts that make you think, about technologies that help you stay independent, and about people whose creativity makes the Internet truly interesting, I hope you liked the humor too.

So, dear friends, do not lose touch, continue to read, write, create. Small Web lives thanks to you. And we will see you in the next issue.

Until next time!

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