Welcome to the eighth issue of ELPiS magazine in May.
We
continue to move forward, slowly, without chasing trends. This magazine
is about the same Internet that lives on personal websites, in silence,
in corners where advertising does not look and where there is no need to
explain anything, we just make small web.
ELPiS is a magazine
that is mostly entertaining, not educational. Although, if you look
closely, you can find morality, sadness, and something very personal
between the lines. There is no editorial plan, no thematic issues.
Everything you read appears because it was impossible not to write.
Small
web is not just a technical phenomenon. It is a culture, it is a
spirit. It is when you are your own designer, editor, censor, and
publisher. A world where no one is watching you, except maybe the old
hit counter at the bottom of the page.
This issue, like all the
previous ones, is done on the fly, but with soul. Live thoughts,
sometimes confused, but real. We do not give out productivity tips, do
not retell the news and do not fight for your attention. We just put on
the table what we have and say: "Look, here." And if you do not want to
look - well, we are still glad that you dropped by.
May is a good
month to slow down a little. Turn off notifications. Walk around old
sites. Read something strange. Or just do nothing and let the world spin
without you.
Thanks to everyone who reads ELPiS, who sends
letters and articles, who puts a link to us on their site. Thanks to
everyone who maintains and develops personal sites. Who understands that
the word "alternative" is not a fashionable term, but a position.
We
continue. And we hope that what you read will inspire you, at least for
a moment, to do something of your own — albeit small, but real. And if
it doesn’t inspire you, then at least it will lift your spirits and
remind you: you are not alone in this cozy corner of the Internet. And
at that moment the world will become a little cozier.
Welcome to the eighth issue!
— ELPiS. May 2025.
Table of contents:
ALIWEB — a search engine that made people search
Technology, Advertising, and a Quiet Revolution
"Gratian's Eye"
Web Design: A Brief History of Great and Terrible Styles
Jokes
Ghosts in the Machine: Secret Messages in Operating Systems
Epilogue
ALIWEB — a search engine that made people search
Back
in 1993, when the Internet was still something mysterious and almost
magical, a project with an intriguing name ALIWEB appeared. This search
engine became the harbinger of everything we know about searching on the
Internet today. And here's what's surprising - it was created to make
life easier for users, which by modern IT standards is simply impossible
to wrap your head around. But someone had to do it, right?
It
was a different time. At that time, we did not have round-the-clock data
flows, super-fast Internet, and there was no Google that would know
where you were last night.
The Internet was something simple and
laconic, but chaotic. And then, in the midst of this chaos, ALIWEB
appeared. This was in 1994, when browsers weighed less than a megabyte,
and pages loaded so slowly that you had to take a break for a cup of tea
just to wait for loading (oh, and I drank a lot of tea in my time).
ALIWEB
was the first search engine that tried to give us a search tool, but in
a DIY way. Why search using automatic algorithms when you can manually
add sites to the search engine?
Yes, this was the case when
“user-generated content” was not a trendy trend, but a real innovation,
because people actually created their own visibility on the web, and the
web itself.
Martin Koster, a programmer from the Netherlands,
came up with this search engine when he was just starting out at Nexor.
He was clearly not a supporter of the idea of “doing everything for
users” and rather wanted users to take control themselves. The idea was
as simple as two and two: let people manually submit their sites,
specifying a description, keywords and whatever else they need to get
into the search engine. For that time, this was a real revolution.
Not
automatic page scanning, like in future search engines, but a
completely manual application process - that was the essence of ALIWEB.
Each webmaster had to create a text file with tags and instructions,
place it in a special directory, and only then would the site be
indexed.
Yes, this does not sound like a recipe for overnight
success. But that was the whole style of ALIWEB - if you want to be
found, then do everything to be found.
Why did it not take off?
What
was the main problem with ALIWEB? It was that the site owners, as in
any other business, did not really want to bother. It is unlikely that
any of them were going to fill out applications for the search engine
manually. ALIWEB simply could not attract enough people to become a mass
product.
The result was a strange picture, where the search
engine that tried to give people power over search results ended up on
the sidelines. At this time, other projects like Yahoo! were starting to
take over the world thanks to the principle “everyone wants to be
found, and we will find them.”
But we must not forget that ALIWEB
had its own unique approach: it did not overload servers with requests.
In the 90s, the Internet was still in its infancy, and every request
was valuable. The problem was that ALIWEB looked like a system for
people with personal responsibility, and most, as harsh as it may sound,
were simply not ready for this.
But Koster did not stop. He was a
man with an idea. Unlike other search engines, such as Archie, Veronica
or Jughead (they worked only with FTP servers and were more like
directories than full-fledged search engines), ALIWEB gave users a real
opportunity to show initiative. It brought the ability for webmasters to
decide for themselves how their pages would be displayed in search
results. This was a kind of embryo of SEO.
Paradoxically, Koster
is the same person who invented `robots.txt`, a file that limits robots'
access to site pages. That is, first he made a search engine without
robots, and years later he figured out how to keep these robots in a
cage. Progress!
In the same years, other search engines began to
appear: WebCrawler, Lycos, Infoseek... They were less elegant, but they
operated on the principle of “no permission to enter, we’ll come
anyway.” ALIWEB looked at them with disdain, like old people on TikTok.
ALIWEB
did not live long. It got lost in the rapidly growing chaos of the
Internet, like a bar of soap in a dorm. And, frankly, no one really
noticed. Even Wikipedia speaks of it somehow dryly and with a hint of
regret.
Nevertheless, this is a reminder that search engines did
not have to develop the way they do now. You could say that ALIWEB was
too good for this world. It respected users, did not impose itself, did
not track them, did not sell data.
His idea is decentralized, respectful of resources and the user, but in the 90s such ideas were not fashionable, but useless.
Now
search engines know everything about us: what we ate, who we google at
night and on which hand we have a wart. ALIWEB would return to its
static HTML grave in horror. It was created for the era of trust and
respect. That is, as it turned out, a fictitious era.
ALIWEB
could not compete with something more simple intuitive and automated.
Recalling the project, Koster himself admitted that the main problem
with ALIWEB was that people simply did not want to do anything. In 1994,
we all thought that the Internet was some kind of magical place where
you could just take a break from the real world. And when such
functionality as manual data entry for a search engine was proposed, no
one was ready for such a load. What happened to it next? In fact, ALIWEB
became one of those projects that sank into oblivion, like many other
search engines of those years, which lost popularity against the
backdrop of simplified technologies and increased competition.
ALIWEB and modern search engines
Today,
when every search engine knows everything about us, when we cannot pass
by a single advertisement, ALIWEB seems almost romantic. It was a time
when search engines did not yet monitor our every move. And although his
ideas were outdated, they were honest.
So in the end, despite
all its shortcomings, ALIWEB was one of those projects that laid the
foundations for the future of the Internet. And even if it didn’t become
the search engine that ultimately won, its ideas – trust, respect,
control over your own content – remain relevant to this day.
It
may not have been ready for its time. But in a world where control has
been lost and we have all become Google products, ALIWEB remains a
symbol of how we could build the Internet – with care for the user and
without endless advertising.
Technology, Advertising, and a Quiet Revolution
I
recently watched the first episode of the seventh season of Black
Mirror, and it still hasn’t let go. The episode is called “Ordinary
People.”
But as often happens with this series, behind the
familiar title lies a cold, ironic, painfully familiar world. At first
glance, this is the story of a woman named Amanda, who is diagnosed with
a brain tumor and offered an “innovative” operation: replacing the
affected areas with synthetic tissue controlled by a subscription.
The
operation itself is free. But the functioning of the brain now depends
on monthly payments. And if you don’t pay, you are “switched off” or
turned into a billboard.
At first, it seems that the series is
going too far. But a few minutes pass - and you catch yourself thinking:
we are almost there. Advertising is already being broadcast into our
subconscious - through algorithms, recommendations, imposed thoughts and
feelings. We have long been paying not with money, but with attention.
Only for now our brain still belongs to us. But for how long?
What
is scary in this episode is not the dystopian scale, but the everyday
routine of what is happening. Work, family, the desire to survive. The
heroine's husband, in order to cover the costs of servicing her brain,
begins to participate in shameful streams, while Amanda, losing control,
increasingly interrupts her speech with commercials. And the hardest
thing is not even the tragic ending, but how easily we, the viewers,
agree with this reality.
We have already seen it. Just before - outside the screen.
And
here comes the most interesting part. When I tried to talk about my
feelings from this episode, I suddenly realized: I do not want to talk
about technology. I want to talk about people. About us - those who find
themselves between worlds. Between the ability to speak and the
inability to be heard. Between commerce and real communication. Between
huge platforms and ... what?
The answer unexpectedly comes on its
own. From what is called the “small web” — a small, independent
internet that does not require likes and subscribers, is not geared
towards advertising and does not live by algorithms. These are corners
of the web where everything is different. Static html sites, blogs
without a social component, notes without reference to trends. Those
places where you can be, not broadcast. Write, not sell. Read, not
scroll.
More and more people are going there — and not out of
despair, but out of fatigue. They remember what the internet was like
before: in the 90s and early 2000s, when a site was like a room
decorated by hand. When SEO was not important, but what you wrote
yourself. When silence was not emptiness, but a space for reflection.
Today it is returning — and not as a fashion, but as a form of
resistance.
The 90s as a space, and many today romanticize the
90s — as a time of freedom, first discoveries, the emergence of the
internet. But what is really valuable about them is the sense of space.
We didn’t know how to do it back then. We didn’t know that a site had to
be adaptive. We just wrote. Putting out text was an act. Even HTML code
had a personal style. And the small web today is an attempt to bring
back that environment. An environment where you are not a product, not a
user, not a channel author, but first and foremost a person.
Some
are even returning to Gopher — a text-based information access system
that preceded the modern web. There is no CSS or images. Only structure,
text, meaning. It’s akin to returning to a typewriter — but not because
of the retro, but because of the silence it provides. You can’t
“optimize for an algorithm” there.
You can only speak there. And be heard — if you’re lucky.
When
I read such sites, I increasingly think: this is literature. Real.
Informal, often very simple, but profound. These pages are closer to
books than modern blogs. They are not designed for traffic. They are
designed for you to sit down, open, read — and stay. Maybe for a minute.
But for real.
Examples? Many. For example, wiby.me — a search
engine for old sites, forgotten, but alive. Or Gopher servers, like
sdf.org, where people share thoughts like in letters: without haste,
without hashtags. I will not specifically provide links to specific
blogs, so as not to focus on any one author. There are many authors, and
they are interesting to read.
There are writers who started with
websites, and then wrote books. One of them is Robin Sloan (“Mr.
Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore”). At first, he kept a web diary, and then a
book was published based on it, almost without editing. He was one of
the first to start talking about “app-less publishing” — independent
publication outside of platforms.
There are those who have gone
the other way, like Cory Doctorow, a contemporary Canadian science
fiction writer (“Land of the Sysadmins”), who started out as a writer
and then became a defender of the decentralized web.
If the
“Black Mirror” series shows how we are being turned into advertising
wrappers, then the small web reminds us that we are people. That we have
voices that are not built into the interface.
But for this to be
possible, time is needed. And silence. And also a boundary separating
you from the flow. In the 90s, the boundary was the telephone line (you
just put the receiver down near the device, no onecould get through).
Today — no notifications. Free space. Your own domain.
In a world
where subscriptions determine how your brain works, the only real act
of freedom is to write yourself, moving away from social media. Not
according to format. Not for reach. But because you want to say
something. Like in a letter. Like in a diary. Like in an old book.
And
maybe someday someone will discover your site, like a book on a shelf:
by chance, but in time. And read it. For real. Without likes. Without
advertising. Simply because it’s you, who is real.
"Gratian's Eye"
Gratian
worked in a Polish waiting room. Not as a doctor, but as an
ophthalmologist's assistant. Something between an orderly and a nurse,
but with access to medications and equipment.
- Put your chin here. Lie still, don't blink.
Every
morning he went to work as if to a cemetery: with the feeling that he
would return from there tired, and perhaps a little dead inside.
- Mr. Gratian, I have spots before my eyes!
- Then chase them away with a newspaper, Mr. Yaroslav, or don't drink in the morning!
Everything
would be fine, but his patients infuriated him. Not just irritated him -
they brought him to an internal boil. Especially those who believed in
all sorts of nonsense.
— It doesn't really work, — he explained
for the eighth time that day, wiping the glass with soapy water and
thinking about how nice it would be to just break the glass and bury his
forehead in the shards. — Any decent ophthalmologist (and there aren't
any) will tell you that these things are just a way to rip off
customers. Soothing lenses, glasses with holes, vitamins and rhinoceros
horn extract. It's all a scam. And the carrot myth is a lie too.
He
said this while watching the old lady in the hallway gnaw on a carrot
with the tops still on. She looked at him through cloudy glasses like a
rabbit with a sticker instead of a brain that says "healthy eating is
our everything!"
— You can eat kilograms of carrots and shit
yellow poop, but your eyesight won't improve. Only genetics decides.
Unfortunately. Or fortunately, if you are from a family of hawks, -
Gracian continued and dripped into the eyes of a boy who came to check
"if it is possible to beg for a exemption for school."
The boy blinked.
-
Yes - the eyes get tired, - Gracian said, no longer looking. - But not
because of the "radiation" or "monitor aura". But because you look at
one point, from one distance, for eight or more hours in a row, as if
you are participating in a competition for retinal fatigue.
He
knew what he was talking about. He had been working at computers since
the time when they "put on" a screen made of women's tights on monitors,
and put a cactus on the side so that it supposedly "absorbed
radiation."
- All these tricks are bullshit, - he muttered,
printing out the diagnostic results. - The eye gets tired from the same
angle, without blinking, at a static image.
Almost always. Well,
unless you play 3D shooters and imagine that the enemy around the corner
is your ex (for some reason, Gracian laughed at this joke; he generally
liked jokes about exes, just like jokes about mothers-in-law).
A
child was screaming in the hallway. His mother was trying to persuade
him to “sit quietly, like dad in front of the TV when football is on.”
Gracian took out the drops. The main thing is not to miss by accident.
“To
preserve your eyesight, you don’t need to eat vitamins, but to distract
yourself,” he told the old woman (yes, the same one who ate carrots).
“Look into the distance. Even if there’s a construction site outside
your window where migrant workers are yelling all morning. The eyes
don’t care about the nationality of the workers. It’s important for them
that the picture changes.”
“And if you’re farsighted?” the old woman asked, picking at her nail.
“Then have an operation,” Gracian answered gloomily.
Somewhere
in Gracian's old archive were photographs of patients' eyes. The
aperture range was like that of a club raver after three drops of
ecstasy.
"Have you seen the eyes of IT specialists up close?" he
asked. "Their aperture is wide, as if they had taken something. But in
reality, their eyes were just tired and forgot how to contract. That's
all. That's all mathematics."
He loved the word "mathematics."
There was something pure in it, unlike patients who came with snotty
hands, tearful eyes and complaints like "yesterday I looked a little at a
welding spark when I was making a pen for pigs in the barn and now I
can't see the toilet."
At lunch, Gracian read Reddit. There was a
guy there who wrote that he saved his eyesight with the help of chakra
exercises and a mantra.
"I hope you go blind," Gracian whispered and ate a sandwich with sausage.
Sometimes,
in the evenings, he would look at the sunset and imagine the day coming
when no one would believe in stupid tricks, buy glasses with holes in
them, or put a cactus next to the monitor. But then he would remember
the old woman with the haulm in her teeth and he understand:
The world cannot be saved. It's time to sleep.
Web Design: A Brief History of Great and Terrible Styles
Once
upon a time, the Internet was cozy. Gifs with lights, WordArt frames,
buttons with gradients that made you cry. People didn’t know the words
“usability” and “UX,” but they knew that a button should look like a
real button, and text should look like something you want to read. But
times change, and every year new design styles appear, as if someone had
turned on an endless cycle of experiments. Let’s take a look at what
monsters of web design have appeared over the past decades and how they
make us happy… or scare us.
Let’s begin? ;-)
Classic web design: time-tested
Classic
style is a strict grid, neat fonts, and subdued colors. Such sites look
reliable and inspire confidence. This is what banks, large
corporations, and universities choose.
Pros: Convenience, logic, predictability. No one gets lost.
Cons: Can be boring. If you want a thrill, pass by.
Skeuomorphism: When a Button Was a Button
Skeuomorphism
is a style in which digital elements look like their real-life
counterparts. This means that a button resembles a physical button, a
calendar looks like a tear-off wall calendar, and the textures of
leather and wood seem natural. Apple was especially fond of this style -
just remember the early versions of iOS, where the calculator looked
like a real one, and notes - like a notepad.
Why was it cool?
People felt safe. No surprises - the voice recorder icon looked like a
cassette recorder, so it definitely records sound.
Why did it
die? Developers got tired of drawing shadows and textures, and users
realized that the digital world is not the real world, and they do not
need to scroll virtual pages with their finger.
Material Design: Google Tried to Save the World
After
the death of skeuomorphism, Google's "material design" came along - a
style that seemed to try to preserve physicality, but without
unnecessary embellishments. Everything was built on cards, shadows, and a
clear hierarchy.
Pros: finally order! All information is logically organized, and interfaces have become cleaner and more convenient.
Cons: everything began to seem the same. If you've seen one site on material design, you've seen them all.
Brutalism: design without sentimentality
Brutalism
is a style in which the web designer took a brick and threw it at the
screen. Extremely rough, minimally processed, without embellishments -
pure functionality. This style is inspired by architectural brutalism,
where buildings look more like bunkers than cozy houses.
Why is
it cool? Honesty. There are no shadows, gradients or other tricks here –
just clear shapes, big fonts and minimalism on steroids.
Why is it a problem? Sometimes such sites look like they were simply forgotten to be finished.
Neo-brutalism: a drunk designer bursts into the office
It
sounds like a diagnosis, but in fact it is a style that went against
all the rules. It is similar to the old brutalism of the 90s (massive
headings, monochrome colors, rough shapes), but with modern technology.
An example? Giant fonts, sharp lines, no symmetry and a feeling that
this site was assembled in the dark.
Why is it "neo"? Unlike the
original brutalism, neo-brutalism uses deliberate chaos: everything
seems absurd, but in fact, every detail is part of the idea.
What's wrong? Such sites either look cool and fresh, or like a bug in the code. There is no third option.
Minimalism: "Less is more"
Minimalism
is a style that saves your brain resources. It's simple: maximum white
space, minimum details. Many modern well-known trading companies have
unanimously shaved their websites to a shine, leaving only the most
important.
What's the catch? Sometimes it goes too far. For
example, you go to a website, and there's only a logo and the words
"Hello". That's it. Where's the menu? Where's anything? Oh, right, the
menu is hidden in three dots in the corner, but that's your problem.
Polygonal style: the era of broken shapes
Polygonal
style is a design that seems to have escaped from early 3D games. Sharp
angles, geometric shapes and the feeling that the designer was inspired
by the first PlayStation.
Why is it interesting? It creates a futuristic, technogenic look, especially when combined with neon colors.
Why might it not work? Sometimes it feels like you've entered a browser version of Quake 1.
Retro Design: When Pixels Are Back in Fashion
Websites
styled like the 80s, 90s, or even MS-DOS aren't just a tribute to the
good old Internet. They're a way of saying to the world, "I'm so cool
that I can afford a site that looks like GeoCities, but with responsive
design."
Why is it cool? Nostalgia! Pixel fonts, animations, cyberpunk neon colors.
Why
is it annoying? Some people go too far and turn the site into a chaos
of flashing buttons and a hellish color palette (If you visit such sites
alone, hold a pencil in your mouth, you might have an attack! Just
kidding).
Chaotic Design: "It doesn't matter, creativity is the main thing"
Some
designers have decided that user experience is a relic of the past, and
began to make websites that resemble art objects. The menu moves, links
change color and shape, text runs away from the cursor - total chaos.
The problem? You just can't find the button you need.
Who came up with this? Probably people who have never used the Internet, but really love modern art.
Grunge design: beauty in chaos
Grunge
in web design is dirty textures, worn edges, sloppy fonts and the
feeling that the site has survived a nuclear war, but still works.
Why is it cool? Atmosphere. Looks especially good for music and art projects.
What can be annoying? If you overdo it, the site turns into a dirty spot that is difficult to read.
Hand-drawn style: when the designer is also an artist
Hand-drawn style is when the site looks like an illustration from a book. Soft lines, hand-drawn elements, lively textures.
Why is it attractive? Friendliness and uniqueness. It’s hard to confuse this design with anything else.
Why is it rare? It requires a lot of time and skills. Not every web designer is an illustrator.
Festival style: a carnival in the browser
Festival
design is a feast for the eyes (and a nightmare for UX specialists). It
explodes with bright colors, animations, unusual fonts and
illustrations. This style is reminiscent of advertising flyers from the
90s, where everything screams “Look at me!”
Why does it work? It’s great for creative events, music festivals, art projects. The more the better.
Why is it terrible? Sometimes the site becomes so overloaded that navigation turns into a quest.
Is there hope for the best?
Design
is always evolving, but sometimes it seems like it’s going in circles.
We’ve already gone through complex textures, flat buttons, minimalism,
neo-brutalism, and now pixelated sites have appeared again. Perhaps in
10 years we will return to three-dimensional buttons and pages that you
can flip with your finger.
But one thing is certain: in the world
of web design, there will always be room for strange ideas that
simultaneously delight and drive you crazy.
Take a look at your web page and roughly determine what style you profess?
Jokes
The height of optimism is to think that there are as many chocolates in a box as can theoretically fit in it.
I took an IQ test - the result is negative
Beauty will save the world from the dominance of intelligence
Of all the latest fashion trends, white slippers are the latest
Temporarily is one day less than permanently
Not every moose will bite through a rail
A man chases a woman until she catches him
Don't
tell a programmer: "Come in, you'll be a guest!", please him with the
opportunity to come in as an administrator or, in extreme cases, as a
user
If you don't succeed the first time - parachuting is not for you
A genius sleeps in each of us. And every day it gets stronger
Relatives
are a group of people who periodically gather to count and have a tasty
meal on the occasion of a change in their number
Ignorance of the law does not exempt from liability. Knowledge is easy
History is a collection of facts that shouldn't have been
A smoked cigarette shortens life by 2 hours, a drunk bottle of vodka - by 3. A working day shortens life by at least 8 hours
People who think they know everything in the world irritate us - people who really know everything in the world.
Every reasonable thing has its end, and only nonsense can be endlessly engaged in.
Children are interested in the question: where does everything come from. Adults - where does everything go.
Computers, of course, make mistakes, but they make them very carefully and quickly
A person spends 30% of his life sleeping. The remaining 70 dreams of getting enough sleep...
A computer does what you ordered it to do, and not what you would like it to do.
How to make a person feel good? Do badly, and then just as it was.
Human stupidity gives an idea of \u200b\u200binfinity.
A change of position without a raise is a demotion.
An optimist is a person who does not know the whole truth
Eat a beaver - save a tree.
Don't worry if something doesn't work right. If everything worked right, you would be out of a job.
Ghosts in the Machine: Secret Messages in Operating Systems
– "Help! Help! He's STILL being held prisoner in a system software factory!"
This
message was found in the depths of one of the old Apple systems — a
file in the System folder, which was easy to open with any text editor.
And, like in a good detective story, a strange story was hidden behind
the harmless technical text.
Captives of the OS Factory
The first version of this message was found in System 7.0. Back then, it looked a little different:
– "Save us, we are being held prisoner...”
As
if someone was actually sitting in the Cupertino basement and, taking
advantage of their official position, embedding a cry for help right
into the system files. In a later version — System 7.5.3, revision 2 —
the message acquired a dramatic tone: the author is still a prisoner.
What happened to the previous prisoners? Were they able to get out? Or
were they replaced by new ones?
KGB Thanks
Another
surprise is found in the "special thanks" block for the developers.
There, next to the usual names... KGB flashes. Coincidence? Or was one
of the programmers too keen on the Cold War and old spy thrillers?
Of
course, someone will say: “These are just Easter eggs. Programmers'
jokes.” And they will be partly right. Apple has traditionally been
famous for its culture of humor and Easter eggs. But what if... these
are not just jokes?
Where else to look
Old images of System 7, 7.5.3, 8.0 and 9.0 - especially localized versions, where translators could add something of their own.
Files with the `rsrc` extension - they often hide text lines that are not displayed in the interface.
Utilities like ResEdit, HexFiend, BBEdit - will help you look under the hood.
The `Read Me` and credits files are also often hiding strange things.
Messages from the past
There
is a theory that some of these messages are not just jokes, but part of
some kind of art project or game developed within the team. A kind of
ARG (alternate reality game), but hidden in the most unexpected places.
And
if this is true, then who knows how many such messages have not yet
been found? Maybe right now your old Power Macintosh is storing
someone's cry for help.
Other messages left in the code
In
addition to the famous call for help from System 7, enthusiasts have
found other phrases scattered throughout the insides of macOS and old
Apple applications:
System 6.x - Inside some resources there was a message:
- "This is a trap. Do not proceed further."
and it really stood in front of a damaged resource that could cause a system crash.
QuickTime 2.x – One of the DLL files for Mac OS could contain:
– "Reality is for people who can't handle emulation."
a philosophy that is hard to disagree with, especially in the era of Mini vMac and Basilisk II.
MacPaint – The program contained a line in the code:
– "Created by Bill Atkinson with much love and little sleep."
and also ASCII graphics with the creator's face.
Microsoft's
messages are usually less poetic, but they also had their own
curiosities and Easter eggs. Especially in the 90s and early 2000s.
Easter eggs from Microsoft Office
Excel
97 contained a whole 3D flight simulator that could be activated using a
special sequence of actions. In the background there were developers
with inscriptions and strange messages like:
– "We see all, we know all, we code all."
Microsoft Word 97 also had an Easter egg in the form of a pinball game, with a screen of thanks and lines like:
– "The end is near.”
Internet Explorer 4 and 5 could find hidden lines like:
– "Developed by the best. Or at least, by the fastest."
One of the IE6 resources mentions:
– "All your base are belong to us."
meme, built into one of the internal string display tests.
Windows NT 3.5 – In the system library NTOSKRNL.EXE they found:
– "The Blue Screen of Death is watching you."
Windows 95 / 98 Some users, digging into kernel32.dll and user32.dll, found phrases like:
– "Bad things come to those who hex."
What was it really?
Most likely, these are:
1. Easter eggs from programmers tired of monotonous work.
2. Inside jokes that made it into the final build.
3. Test remnants, left behind accidentally or intentionally.
But who said some of these messages didn't have a deeper meaning? Especially when it comes to calls for help...
Epilogue
Another
step in the search for alternatives, another response to the challenges
that we face, another attempt to return the warmth and meaning that
once filled the web. In a world where everything is moving faster and
faster towards endless consumption and superficial pleasures, we
continue to look for opportunities to be real. Our little corner will
remain a place for those who are looking for something more than just
another stream of news, advertising and empty footnotes.
This
magazine is not only about criticism, but also about hope. Hope that
among millions of standard commercial sites there will still be space
for personal projects, for something sincere, created with soul. Where
ideas, creativity and freedom are still more important than likes and
views.
Time goes by, technologies change, but the desire for
simplicity, sincerity and essence remains with us. This is our main
value - to create for ourselves, and not for the system. We believe that
in a world of endless possibilities there is a place for such simple
but profound things. That there are places where you can still find
meaning and warmth, both online and in life.
Thank you for
visiting these pages. We are sure that in the next issue you will again
find new discoveries and moments for reflection.
See you!