~ Early Web Links ~

A newsletter article from the ODP/DMOZ open directory project's Winter 2006 issue, humorously describing the migration to new servers through the perspective of fictional 'hamsters' powering the editors.dmoz.org infrastructure. Part of a regular newsletter for DMOZ editors, it covers server upgrades, editor initiatives, and community news from the volunteer-run web directory.

The Archive Team wiki page documenting the GeoCities Project, a coordinated mass effort to rescue and preserve data from Yahoo's GeoCities before its shutdown in October 2009. It covers the technical details of the crawl, the volunteers involved, and the parallel efforts with archive.org, making it a valuable historical record of one of the web's most significant preservation projects.

Andy McFadden's comprehensive CD-Recordable FAQ is the definitive reference guide covering everything about CD-R and CD-RW technology, from basic concepts to advanced topics like packet writing, disc formats, and hardware troubleshooting. Originally developed for the comp.publish.cdrom Usenet newsgroups, this meticulously maintained document reached version 2.73 and is available in multiple languages including German, French, Russian, and more.

FOLDOC (Free On-line Dictionary of Computing) is a massive reference work maintained by Denis Howe since 1985, containing over 15,000 definitions covering everything from acronyms and jargon to programming languages, networking, and computing history. With its breadth spanning telecoms, mathematics, electronics, and even the occasional bit of 'art,' it remains one of the oldest and most comprehensive computing dictionaries on the open web.

This is the legendary Ward Cunningham wiki (c2.com), the original wiki ever created, focused on software development, programming patterns, and computer science concepts. The CamelCase page specifically documents the WikiWord naming convention that became foundational to wiki culture and collaborative web-based knowledge systems.

The Jargon File is the legendary online lexicon of hacker slang, culture, and folklore, maintained by Eric S. Raymond (ESR) and covering everything from technical terminology to the sociology of hacker life. Version 4.4.7 includes a full glossary, essays on hacker writing and speech styles, appendices on hacker folklore, and a detailed portrait of hacker culture that has made this one of the most cited references in computing history.

The official NetBSD/macppc FAQ covers everything a user needs to install and run NetBSD on PowerPC-based Apple hardware, from booting and partitioning to Open Firmware, supported hardware models, and peripheral configuration. With dozens of detailed questions and answers spanning networking, ADB keyboards, USB devices, and kernel options, it serves as an indispensable technical reference for running this Unix-like OS on older Power Macs and PowerBooks.

A comprehensive reference collection of kaomoji, the Japanese emoticon style built from Japanese characters and punctuation, organized by emotion and action categories like joy, anger, hugging, and sleeping. Created by SmileX, this kawaii-focused site explains the cultural origins of kaomoji and offers hundreds of copy-ready emoticons alongside an Android app for mobile use.

Jason Scott's web.textfiles.com is a sprawling archive of historical text files covering hacking, phreaking, e-zines, humor, virus research, and underground computing culture from the BBS era and beyond. It's an essential digital preservation project cataloging thousands of documents that capture the raw, unfiltered voice of early internet and hacker subcultures.

Ron Hale-Evans's personal bookmarks hotlist from May 2003, preserved as a sprawling snapshot of early-web browsing habits covering science fiction indexes, Linux resources, book finders, and general web utilities. With nearly 4,000 links organized into categories like Comp, Booksearch, and Misc, it offers a fascinating time-capsule view of what a well-read, technically-minded internet user kept bookmarked at the dawn of the modern web.