The Wayback Machine - Browse The Internet Of Yester-Yore

No I am not talking about the Wayback machine used in Rocky and Bullwinkle from what seems like a lifetime ago. I am talking about the Internet initiative to index and store websites as they were in the past. To some this may seem trivial or pointless, but to me this is awesome!

I knew about it for some time as I always saw links to it on the Alexa website. But I never really gave it a shot. Once I tried it to bring up some early images of my AskTheAdmin and I was hooked. I quickly tried some sites I put up in early 2001 and then 2002, 2003 and before I knew it - it was time for lunch!

So don’t say Make Use Of doesn’t contribute to your delinquency! But remember if anyone asks, let’s just call it market research!

Alrighty then enough of the introduction lets take you back… WAY BACK!

Put down your porn work and point your Time Machine browser to http://www.archive.org/web/web.php and you will be greeted with a page with a search box that looks like this:

Enter your destination, crank up that flux capacitor, and click the “Take me back!” button.

You will then see a grid with what date data is available for the site you entered.

If you click on one of them you will see the site - now this is not just a pretty picture - it is a FULLY FUNCTIONAL site. A lot of the external references have been maintained as well. The end result is like walking around a ghost town or peeking back into the past. Be forewarned it is addictive.

What could be addictive about an archive of websites?

I guess to the average person nothing but, to an uber geek like myself, it is dangerous. You can follow the history of the interwebs. Follow the progress of websites throughout their early stages and even through closed betas and sites that are no longer online. Ever wanted to see what your favorite sites looked like before they look like they do today?

Lets take a look at an early glimpse of what Google looked like back in the day (circa 1998)

How about a month before that?

Pretty cool huh? Here is a quick shot of AskTheAdmin and MakeUseOf (respectively) from it’s early days:

Remember the first domain you bought that you over did with flash and java scripts? It went off-line because you couldn’t pay the bills? Now you can see it again!

You can go check out how your favorite sites developed and continue to develop. That has to be the justification for me just wasting 3 hours of my day. Hold on that’s the support line ringing…

Yeah let them wait!

(By): Karl L. Gechlik is a superhero of the IT industry who wears many hats and changes in telephone booths. Karl mostly uses his powers for good and the occasional hysterical prank. Get your geek on & follow his geeky antics at askTheAdmin.com today.

If you found this article useful then please help us spread the word by Stumbling It.

If you like this article then subscribe to MakeUseOf feed and get latest articles delivered to your Feedreader. If you want to recieve latest articles in your email click here. It's FREE!