ImageWriter II Blog

I used MUDDweller for MUSEs and MOOs, not MUDDs. Sorry.

The text of David Gravereaux's message needed some tweaking to be readable. Oui, he did be printin' off this gateway.

Wow! A future Internet celebrity. A quick search find news article about Thomas Hadfield's sale of Soccernet to Disney. Why did no one offer millions for Yikes? Oh well.

For a while, my Netscape Tricks web page was the most popular one on the site. I am glad Dennis Sinacola was able to find something useful on it, most people simply used the site as an excuse to ask for help with their browser! The super reload trick he's referencing involved holding shift or option to make Netscape reload the current page without going to cache.

There were other messages on this New Year's Day, but they were not worthy of wasting bits, including a comment proclaiming that "melvins rule!!!!" from usr2.primenet.com, an exciting "Hi" from terra-gw.pothole.com, and another "Hello" from tentacle@teleport.com.

Posted by eric at 08:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You just have to trust me!

Exactly 9 years after this post I was in Amsterdam for New Years Eve. Sorry about the garbage text (D D D D), the serial driver I was using would send bits along every time I opened the port.

w00t.

Why not? I had a printer, paper and a dedicated ISDN connection.

Posted by eric at 09:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While I had support for basic markup support, it was certainly not an HTML rendering engine:

Thanks for sharing. Really. Thanks.

Yes sir! I always suspected that aliens lived in Canada.

Sorry, I don't speak German.

And from the-city-next-to-the-city the printer lived in:

Posted by eric at 05:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A quiet evening. Elan Ruskin reminds us that federal holidays can overrule theoretical physics, and that the Intel Pentium can't do math. Meanwhile, Shelley was successful in using the style tags, but the rmii.com (now Earthlink) user was not.

Yo, Jaydo, peace bro! Or something like that.

Posted by eric at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today starts off with a creative post from a prankster in Hong Kong, at 4am Pacific:

Followed several hours later by Anthony Lasure complaining that my countdown page (sadly, another page lost to history) was counting down to January 1st of the wrong year (oops):

... and a very unimaginative message from someone at Microsoft, aside from the claimed user-agent of Microsoft Internet Explorer/0.1 (win32):

Matthew Myers sent what must have come from the UNIX vacation program:

The rest of the posts aren't worthy of the main page... proceed beyond the flip at your own risk.

Nothing like a tasteless IRC rivalry, between ChatMan1 and WebJerk. Here is round 1:

TheBard (rarcoa@xnet.com) has a friend bit to share:

Stephen Mulcahy contributes an eloquent story about poo hed...

And finally, Eric Herot sent a few useless postings in a row. He was the first to actually use sub- and super-script, but not for a very useful purpose.

Posted by eric at 07:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

During its operational lifetime, the printer was located in Berkeley, California.

[ After MIke's message, there is a cutout, where I was unfortunately willing to send it to someone on a postcard. Do you have it? Contact me! ]

Minnesotans are nice, aren't they?

Sorry, tech support is closed for the evening.

Thank you, Bizzy, for your classic style.

There were other messages today, the most intelligible of these said "wuehdudhuwehfwhefuewfhwehf", and unless you consider 199.35.10.92, 38.13.98.57 or dal13-07.ppp.iadfw.net interesting, you aren't missing much.

Posted by eric at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another lovely printout from Bizzy, posting as Irving (lovely #macintosh rivalry):

Oh no! Please don't waste paper!

Just fine.

HHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIII, I don't think you used bold, but instead took advantage of the printer wrapping after reaching the end of the line.

Today's empty messages came from 198.146.3.220 using Lynx/2-4 libwww/2.14, piweba3y-ext.prodigy.com using PRODIGY-WB/1.4b (Prodigy had a web browser?), and 204.245.155.201 using Mozilla/2.0b4 (WinNT; I).

Posted by eric at 05:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Blue fish, what would I ever do without you?

Neither Frank, nor Jadin, noticed that the style guide mentions that tags are case sensitive.

I hope Nelson, British Columbia is treating you well.

Posted by eric at 09:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The East Coast was deluged with over 1 meter of snow, January 6-8 1996.

Popular day for not providing a name. And www.humboldt1.com/~panther is missing from the wayback machine.

I think Matt is talking about the photo shoot for an article that appeared in Computer Reseller News on Apr 29, 1996, titled "Netscape's navigator. Here's the abstract, courtesy of the ABI/INFORM database:

Eric Perlman, a 15-year-old 10th grader, is an accomplished programmer who has found several serious bugs in Netscape Communications Corp.'s Navigator, particularly in its JavaScript implementation. Netscape wants Perlman to come aboard as an intern this summer. Initially, Netscape's JavaScript team was so impressed they wanted to hire Perlman, until they found out he is 15. After reporting his first bug to Netscape, Perlman has found at least 4 serious bugs in JavaScript, including one that enabled him to track users as they visit different Web sites and to capture information from their cookie files, which contain vital user information. Perlman's ability to manipulate Netscape's code is no fluke. He and his father, an Internet guru for Pacific Bell, were Netscape beta testers who reviewed several prerelease versions of the software.

Posted by eric at 07:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think this is the vudu I knew on IRC, but I'm not certain.

142.31.64.110 no longer exists, HI CHARLIE, and yes, eating out makes life enjoyable.

According to the Weather Underground, 57 degrees fahrenheit.

Posted by eric at 08:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks.

No. But here is the Doctor Fun strip for March 1, 1996.

NO WHERE.

Thanks!

Wasn't the Clinton's cat named Socks? Oh right, whitehouse.com, the porn site...

Sorry, the script is text only, no images.

LTNS.

Today's boring John Does are 153.36.165.37 and 137.4.150.38, both using Mozilla/2.0b3 (Win95; I).

Posted by eric at 08:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It looks like the Thursday Contras are still happening in Boston.

No, I still enjoy reading the messages, even a decade later! I've been to Amsterdam twice since you sent this message, nice city. See you around.

You get used to the bzzzt ennnnh bzzzt noises. Really, you do.

Paper is cheap.

Posted by eric at 09:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks, "Bob", for the list of Internet connected devices.

Now, for a bigamy joke from Joel Moses:

Thanks, Marco, although I don't know if I agree that it is really one of the greatest ideas on the Net...

Kurt Raschke is not known for having much to say. bcpl.lib.md.us is the Baltimore County Public Library. I now live in Baltimore.

Sorry James, I can't seem to find any mention of http://users.aimnet.com/~cheese on the Internets.

Yeah, or something.

Posted by eric at 08:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Don't we all!

Unfortunately, most of the CGIs have faded into history, and the Internet Archive didn't catch them in time. :(

Hey, watch it with the winks!

Yes, you did.

Posted by eric at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't have exact numbers, but I estimate thousands...

This message is from Josh Siegel, and referencing Chuck Koleczek. Chuck gave me a stack of random Macintosh II crap, including a PMMU, and PAL memory, allowing me to expand beyond 8 megabytes!

I feel so burned, or something. Morons still rule the Internet.

I'm great.

Wow, another moron, this time a student from Fordham University.

Posted by eric at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nice domain, I own do.net.

Brian Harmon's web page is still accessible, through the Internet Archive, he was a graduate student at UCSF.

What a deep, insightful, comment from UCSD

Hello, Branden. At the time you wrote the message, Yikes was a glorious Macintosh II.

Ah, yes, another url in need of help from the Internet Archive. With a bit of Google magic, you can find the current incarnation of Richard Polt's The Classic Typewriter Page.

No day would be complete without the John Does. Good luck finding your mind, John Doe #2.

Posted by eric at 10:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What is it about FTP that you are looking forl? Are you looking for RFC 959 (File Transfer Protocol)?

I don't understand Finnish... Sorry...

Send one my way. The Mexican food in Maryland is lacking.

Not too much.

According to Wikipedia, the ImageWriter II was actually manufactured into 1996.

Posted by eric at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It takes boredom to set this up. The hardware used was a Macintosh II, initially with 8 megabytes of ram, eventually upgraded to 16, and two hard drives, 40 and 80 gigabytes. Later, after this message was printed, it became a PowerMac 7100/80av.

eBay?

Its a great way to meet random folks on the web... at least, back when the web was a whole lot smaller.

Today's John Doe's were netdsc.futurenet.co.uk (s/he actually said "Hello sir!"), dialup103-074.swipnet.se, and dialup-10-c-36.gw.umn.edu.

Posted by eric at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I wonder if I ever replied to this? I certainly don't recall any German articles about my printer. Oh well. (Update: here is Giesbert's web page.)

Consider this a public service message for all the N.E.R.D.S. out there.

Nice ASCII art face. Self portrait?

Yes.

My name isn't Samantha, and no, I will not marry you.

I don't know why I bother scanning these in... At least they were all on the same page... I did skip one on the first page for the day, form dhcp1-017.cnu.edu.

Posted by eric at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

To start the day off, we have four posts, from Portugal, Educom (.edu?), Canada and Minnesota. Cal must be a MST3K fan.

Thanks for the offer, Satan.

Next, Rufus T. Chintendrils provides what looks like a half finished piece of ASCII art. I think my message length limit cut him off:

And finally, some test output, as I was working on trimming long lines to fit on the page:

Posted by eric at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Need proof?

Posted by eric at 01:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You wonder?

Ah. Yes, you can send ASCII art to the printer.

Text-based web pages hardly waste any bandwidth. Now, these scans are a different story...

Uh...

There is no way I'd ever hook up a laser printer to the net.

Posted by eric at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A Mortal Kombat fan with a Los Alamos e-mail address? Hmm.

Indeed, it does work, and its powered by magic.

Good luck with that.

Welcome to the Internet.

The following was found on the page:

Was it mine? Was it from the holders of the printouts for the past 5 years (Tony & Davida)? I don't know.

Posted by eric at 07:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I don't know.

Yeah, not so much, 27-17, Cowboys. Sorry.

Unfortunately, all the pages cached by the WayBack machine are too new, by which time mindport.net turned into a spam domain.

Why do I think Bob Robertson is really John Parman using an Internet terminal at the UC Berkeley Library?

Thanks!

Posted by eric at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks!

Well, I have only used ImageWriter printers on old Macs, but they can be connected to any PC, using a standard DIN-9 to serial cable. With ghostscript you can even get graphics to print on the ImageWriter with Linux.

Posted by eric at 05:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yeah, I'm sure you are Billy Corgan. Can you sense the sarcasm?

Its a slow day.

Thanks, Chuck.

Posted by eric at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another URL missing from the archive... Oh well.

Hey, I wouldn't call the printer junk, although your message might be, and you should have signed your message, Mr. Doe from mothra02.pixi.com.

Posted by eric at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It takes your electronic message and makes it appear on paper.

Hey, "Bob Pagani" of rac1.wam.umd.edu, perhaps you have come up with the solution to getting americans interested in the BIll of Rights again.

Good thing you sent that message twice. I might not have known just how ancient it was.

Posted by eric at 09:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hello Lozano.

You are the one on dialup, how can you complain about slow speeds? yikes.com had a dual-channel ISDN link. Also, thanks for pointing out a typo, I would never want to confuse anyone who was trying to contact me on itc.

Today's John Does include firewall.exabyte.com and p42.denver1.dialup.csn.net.

Posted by eric at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have no idea where the rest of the message went.

Profound question. Please go away.

No, hey you!

Posted by eric at 03:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While not one for words, Glyn was the only one to send any love today.

Posted by eric at 02:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks, Bart. Ten years after your message was sent, its cold and wet in Baltimore, Maryland.

Why does everyone say this? There are far more senseless things to do.

Plenty, but its usually entertaining.

Posted by eric at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Busy day. Here are the first half...

I did offer to send the printouts to people on a postcard, if they requested. How much more proof do you need?

A quick search suggests that ctcc.gov.za was the domain for the Cape Town City Council.

Yet another IRCer. Long live EFnet #macdev.

There were never snow days in Berkeley.

That sounds inefficient.

Posted by eric at 05:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Most people I knew at Almaden were more verbose.

Thanks, Beavis.

Thanks, Forrest, for sharing.

Frank Laughlin's page still exists, but cc-ladd.html is no more. What are the other three places?

Greg must be shy.

Posted by eric at 09:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yeah, they rock, Apple made them for decades.

Mr. McMillan is an old acquaintance from Berkeley during my high school days. He now lives at theyeti.com. Ah, Marathon, brings back memories.

Thanks, John Doe.

Posted by eric at 08:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)