CINXE.COM
T E X T F I L E S D O T C O M
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN"> <HTML><TITLE>T E X T F I L E S D O T C O M</TITLE> <!-- TEXTFILES.COM is a site dedicated to the Textfiles of the BBS World --> <!-- from the 1980's. Naturally, this role expands into the continuation --> <!-- of the textfile-writing world into the 1990's, and goes back to the --> <!-- 1960's and 1970's as well. If you have any questions, feel free to --> <!-- mail them to jason@textfiles.com. Submissions are always wanted. --> <!-- Unlike a lot of sites, this Page Source has a lot of comments. This --> <!-- is because this site's main purpose is education, and a user should --> <!-- have the opportunity to see how this site was created and what the --> <!-- thought process was behind the look. Plus, the site weighs in at a --> <!-- very low size, so giving an explanation with the download is not a --> <!-- very bandwidth-intensive activity, and might inspire someone. --> <!-- Since TEXTFILES.COM harkens back to an earlier era, but is being done --> <!-- in the modern era, it is the usual blend of recent features and hacks --> <!-- to simulate older technology. In this case, everything is in green --> <!-- (which, believe it or not, is the light that the eye takes the longest --> <!-- to get tired looking at) on a black screen, and the visual "hook" is --> <!-- the Blinking Cursor, which has disappeared in a lot of mainstream, --> <!-- windowed applications. This is accomplished with small animated GIFs. --> <!-- Now, let's make the page the usual black background and green text. --> <BODY BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="00FF00" LINK="00FF00" ALINK="#00FF00" VLINK="#00FF00"> <!-- Where possible, use the courier font, which looks like old-style typewriter faces. Make sure that this color will be green too. --> <CENTER> <TABLE WIDTH="100%"> <TR><TD ALIGN=CENTER BGCOLOR="#004400"> <B><CENTER><FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier" COLOR="#00FF00"> TEXTFILES.COM Mirror Sites: </B></A><BR> <A HREF="http://www.textfiles.com/index.html" TITLE="TEXTFILES.COM Parent Mirror, US">US</A> <A HREF="https://mirror2.evolution-host.com/textfiles/" TITLE="Evolution Host, Canada">.CA</a> <A HREF="https://mirror.cyberbits.eu/textfiles.com/" TITLE="Cyberbits, Paris, France">.EU</A> <A HREF="http://textfiles.meulie.net" TITLE="Evert Meulie, Germany">.DE</A> <A HREF="http://textfiles.serverrack.net/" TITLE="SERVERRACK.NET, Fairfax, VA">US-VA</A> <A HREF="http://textfiles.vistech.net/" TITLE="Vistech, Talahassee, FL">US-FL</A> <A HREF="http://mirror3.preterhuman.net/textfiles" TITLE="Preterhuman, BC, CANADA">BC-CA</A> </CENTER></TD></TR> </TABLE> <TABLE> <TR><TD ALIGN=MIDDLE><FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier" COLOR="#00FF00" size=+2>If you enjoy textfiles.com, tweet about it with hashtag #textfiles.<br> </TABLE> <TABLE HEIGHT=80%> <TR><TD ALIGN=MIDDLE> <CENTER> <IMG ALT="T E X T F I L E S" WIDTH=391 HEIGHT=68 SRC="images/textfile.gif"> <TABLE WIDTH=620> <TR><TD VALIGN=CENTER> <!-- Make this entire description bright green letters, much like the --> <!-- logo, and use a "Courier" font, which will give the letters more --> <!-- of a "typewriter" look, again for a sort of nostalgia feel. --> <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier" COLOR="#00FF00"> On the face of things, we seem to be merely talking about text-based files, containing only the letters of the English Alphabet (and the occasional punctuation mark). <P> On deeper inspection, of course, this isn't quite the case. What this site offers is a glimpse into the history of writers and artists bound by the 128 characters that the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) allowed them. The focus is on mid-1980's textfiles and the world as it was then, but even these files are sometime retooled 1960s and 1970s works, and offshoots of this culture exist to this day. </FONT> </TD></TR> </TABLE> <!-- Having completed the quick blurb introduction, give the user --> <!-- five choices. Essentially, WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHY, and HOW. --> <P> <!-- These five choices are presented in their own table, which has a --> <!-- WIDTH tag set slightly larger than the table above. This is in --> <!-- truth a somewhat meaningless width, since all three items are GIFs --> <!-- and are only on one line, so how wide it is is How Wide It Is. The --> <!-- tag is mostly added for completeness, and potentially to help the --> <!-- browser to render. --> <TABLE WIDTH=640> <TR><TD ALIGN=CENTER> <!-- "Where are the Files?" will take the user to the file directory. --> <!-- When designing a site, it is very important to know what it is your --> <!-- intended audience is going to want and to give it to them. All the --> <!-- work you put into providing a nice-looking page will be meaningless --> <!-- if the users are feeling they are "wading through" your work to get --> <!-- to whatever it is they specifically want. To this end, the main --> <!-- "point" of this site is to give users textfiles, so the archives --> <!-- are the first selection. --> <A HREF="directory.html"> <IMG WIDTH=219 HEIGHT=28 ALT="  Where are the Files?  " SRC="images/wheref.gif" BORDER=0></A> <TD ALIGN=CENTER> <!-- "Who are You?" answers the question of who runs the site. --> <!-- Often, people like to know what person or persons are behind the site --> <!-- they are browsing, to see if they can pick up biases, or, if the site --> <!-- is interesting, to learn more about the person who made the site, as --> <!-- they too might be interesting. I have taken advantage of that to put --> <!-- all of my historical perspectives, site news, and personal writing --> <!-- on a page about myself, separate from the rest of the file pages. --> <!-- This also means that the people who are reading stuff about me will --> <!-- be people who have shown, by clicking the middle selection, that they --> <!-- like to get a "big picture view" of everything. Or that they're nosy. --> <!-- Or that they click on things randomly. I will accept all three. --> <A HREF="jason"> <IMG WIDTH=139 HEIGHT=28 ALT="  Who are You?  " SRC="images/whoyou.gif" BORDER=0></A> <TD ALIGN=CENTER> <!-- "Why Are You Doing This?" shows my motivations and site information. --> <!-- I phrased all three of the selections for TEXTFILES.COM in the form of --> <!-- questions, to put the reader/browser into an inquisitve mood, to ask --> <!-- why things are, where things came from, who is behind the curtain. In --> <!-- this last page, I provide myself a forum to give a "statement" as to --> <!-- why I've dumped weeks of time into this project. I believe it, too. --> <A HREF="statement.html"> <IMG WIDTH=228 HEIGHT=28 ALT="  Why does this Matter?  " SRC="images/wmatter.gif" BORDER=0></A> <TR><TD ALIGN=CENTER> <!-- "What was it Like?" will be the part that gives you tours and the --> <!-- perspective of all the fine folks who were a part of this world. --> <A HREF="history"> <IMG HEIGHT=28 WIDTH=191 ALT="  What was it Like?  " SRC="images/whatw.gif" BORDER=0></A> <TD> <TD ALIGN=CENTER> <A HREF="support"> <IMG HEIGHT=28 WIDTH=176 ALT="  How can I Help?  " SRC="images/howc.gif" BORDER=0></A> </TR></TD> </TABLE> </TABLE> </TABLE> <TABLE WIDTH=100%> <TR><TD ALIGN=CENTER BGCOLOR="#004400"> <CENTER> <B><FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier" COLOR="#00FF00"> TEXTFILES.COM Sites</B></A><BR> <A style="text-decoration: none" HREF="http://ascii.textfiles.com" TITLE="Jason Scott's Weblog"> <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">ASCII</B></A> <A style="text-decoration: none" HREF="http://www.bbsdocumentary.com" TITLE="Jason Scott's BBS Documentary!"> <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">BBSDOCUMENTARY</B></A> <A style="text-decoration: none" HREF="http://artscene.textfiles.com" TITLE="ARTSCENE.TEXTFILES.COM: Decades of Computer Art and Expression"> <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">ARTSCENE</B></A> <A style="text-decoration: none" HREF="http://www.bbshistory.org" TITLE="BBSHISTORY.ORG: Jason's Collections of Online History"> <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">BBSHISTORY</B></A> <A style="text-decoration: none" HREF="http://cd.textfiles.com" TITLE="CD.TEXTFILES.COM: Dozens of old Shareware CDs"> <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">CD</B></A> <A style="text-decoration: none" HREF="http://discmaster.textfiles.com" TITLE="DISCMASTER.TEXTFILES.COM: The Search Engine for CD-ROMs"> <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier"><blink>DISCMASTER</bling></B></A> <A style="text-decoration: none" HREF="http://digest.textfiles.com" TITLE="DIGEST.TEXTFILES.COM: The Mailing Lists That Made a Difference"> <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">DIGEST</B></A> <A style="text-decoration: none" HREF="http://web.textfiles.com" TITLE="WEB.TEXTFILES.COM: Textfiles That Have Come After 1995"> <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">WEB</B></A> <A style="text-decoration: none" HREF="http://bbslist.textfiles.com" TITLE="BBSLIST.TEXTFILES.COM: All the BBSes there Ever Were"> <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">BBSLIST</B></A> <A style="text-decoration: none" HREF="http://timeline.textfiles.com" TITLE="TIMELINE.TEXTFILES.COM: BBS-Related Events"> <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">TIMELINE</B></A> <A style="text-decoration: none" HREF="http://pdf.textfiles.com" TITLE="PDF.TEXTFILES.COM: Your Eclectic PDF Collection"> <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">PDF</B></A> <A style="text-decoration: none" HREF="http://audio.textfiles.com" TITLE="AUDIO.TEXTFILES.COM: The Sound of Online"> <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier">AUDIO</B></A> </CENTER> </TABLE> <P> <CENTER> <FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier"> TEXTFILES.COM has been online for nearly 25 years with no ads or clickthroughs.<br> If you feel like donating to its roughly $1200 yearly upkeep: <a href="https://paypal.me/textfiles">Paypal</a> or <a href="https://account.venmo.com/u/textfiles">Venmo</a>.<br> (If you prefer a different method, you can always <a href="mailto:jason@textfiles.com">contact Jason</a>.) </FONT> </CENTER> <!-- End this document and indicate that the page is over --> </FONT> </BODY> </HTML>