Eryn Wells
80d1f8106a
At the bottom of this post is a two-column layout showing two versions of the meteors spinner. I broke that in a previous commit and this commit brings it back. Use the new content-grid shortcode (implemented in the submodule commit) to render a two-column grid.
97 lines
4 KiB
Markdown
97 lines
4 KiB
Markdown
---
|
|
title: "Netscape Meteors"
|
|
date: 2023-08-01T18:23:33-07:00
|
|
description: I went on a hunt to find the "Meteors" loading animation from Netscape back in the 90s, and wrote up my adventure.
|
|
resources:
|
|
- name: netscape60
|
|
title: Netscape Meteor Loading Animation
|
|
src: netscape-meteors.gif
|
|
- name: netscape-modified60
|
|
title: Modified Netscape Meteor Loading Animation, Small
|
|
src: netscape-meteors-modified-60.gif
|
|
- name: netscape-modified240
|
|
title: Modified Netscape Meteor Loading Animation, Large
|
|
src: netscape-meteors-modified-240.gif
|
|
- name: rectangular-pixels
|
|
title: Rectangular Pixels
|
|
src: rectangular-pixels.png
|
|
alt: "A zoomed in screenshot of an animation frame with pixel grid enabled,
|
|
showing rectangular pixels"
|
|
categories: Tech
|
|
tags: ["Netscape", "History", "Web Browsers", "Web"]
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
I went on a small journey the last couple days to find the original Netscape
|
|
Navigator "meteors" animation. This one has a special place in my head and
|
|
heart because it is so clearly connected to my memories of discovering the
|
|
web as a kid. Here it is in its original 60×60 px glory:
|
|
|
|
{{< figures/image name=netscape60 shouldShowTitle=false size=small >}}
|
|
|
|
I started out doing some web searches that turned up several versions. One was
|
|
promising but far too big: 400×400 px. Worse, after some shoddy resize
|
|
attempts, the "pixels" had become rectangular.
|
|
|
|
{{< figures/image name=rectangular-pixels shouldShowTitle=false size=small >}}
|
|
|
|
This would not do.
|
|
|
|
I continued searching, hoping to find the original animations. I found someone's
|
|
[mirror of Netscape 5.0 on Github][gh-netscape]. Then I found some [very old
|
|
versions of Mozilla][moz-netscape] on a Mozilla FTP server. Sadly, the
|
|
animations had been stripped out of these archives. :(
|
|
|
|
Frustrated with hitting several deadends, I complained to {{< tess >}} and
|
|
wondered aloud if anyone might have the original images stashed away somewhere.
|
|
She quipped that if anyone did, it would be Jamie Zawinski.
|
|
|
|
A little later, I posted about it on Mastodon.
|
|
|
|
<iframe
|
|
src="https://mastodon.social/@erynofwales/110817133916254596/embed"
|
|
class="mastodon-embed"
|
|
style="max-width: 100%; border: 0"
|
|
width="400"
|
|
allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen">
|
|
</iframe>
|
|
|
|
And wouldn't you know it, a friend tagged [`@jwz`][masto-jwz] asking if he had
|
|
it, and a few moments later I got a reply from [Jamie][jwz] himself.
|
|
|
|
<iframe
|
|
src="https://mastodon.social/@jwz/110817331045294426/embed"
|
|
class="mastodon-embed"
|
|
style="max-width: 100%; border: 0"
|
|
width="400"
|
|
allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen">
|
|
</iframe>
|
|
|
|
If you don't know, Jamie Zawinski is well-know for working on several important
|
|
software projects in the '90s. He worked on Netscape Navigator, built and
|
|
maintains [Xscreensaver][xscreensaver], and several other things. Nowadays, he
|
|
owns and runs [DNA Lounge][dna] in San Francisco.
|
|
|
|
There are a lot of neat bits of web browser history on the page he linked --
|
|
totally worth a quick look over -- but most important to the quest at hand, it
|
|
had that Netscape meteors loading animation.
|
|
|
|
The original one has some small artifacts on the left side of frame 10 that
|
|
render as red and orange pixels. These bothered me enough that I made a version
|
|
that replaces those pixels with ones that match the surrounding pixels. Here's
|
|
the modified 60×60 one and a bigger 240×240 px one, for good
|
|
measure:
|
|
|
|
{{< content-grid columns=2 >}}
|
|
{{< figures/image name="netscape-modified60" shouldShowTitle=false shouldResize=false size=small >}}
|
|
{{< figures/image name="netscape-modified240" shouldShowTitle=false shouldResize=false size=small >}}
|
|
{{< /content-grid >}}
|
|
|
|
<script src="https://mastodon.social/embed.js" async="async"></script>
|
|
|
|
[gh-netscape]: https://github.com/zii/netscape
|
|
[moz-netscape]: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/source/
|
|
[masto-jwz]: https://mastodon.social/@jwz
|
|
[jwz]: https://www.jwz.org
|
|
[xscreensaver]: https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/
|
|
[dna]: https://www.jwz.org
|
|
[about-jwz]: https://www.jwz.org/doc/about-jwz.html
|