In honor of its 10th anniversary, Google has rolled back the clock as far as it can go — its January 2001 index. Though the company got rolling in fall 1998, this is the most materially complete version of the original Google that they have, and they’ve even included links to the Internet Archive to retrieve long-since dead web pages. An era before the iPod.
When you go looking for your humble Cult of Mac curators, however, it’s possible to discover a lot of proto-Cult of Mac content, most of which is extremely amusing. It’s like reading today’s Cult of Mac yesterday — but without the benefit of decent web design.
Why here’s Leander at Wired News, writing about the 2001 MacWorld keynote after years kicking around various tech publications and becoming a bicycle messenger: It’s a Mac, Mac, Mac, Macworld.
Or this riveting narrative of Apple’s decision to replace QuickDraw GX with Unicode!
This site even tells of a prehistoric July 15, 1996 MacWeek article in which Leander reports on shocking Mac sales slumps. Damn you, Windows 95!
Other than a bunch of articles from college, searching myself only yields my earliest ever Mac tip from a MacCentral round-up of Mac celebrities that included my report on Radiohead.
Turning back the dial on Craig, meanwhile, turned up the archive of his MacToolbox column “Revert to Saved,” including this scandalous rant that Macs crash occasionally!
Ed’s history includes postings on a now-defunct and not-even archived BeOS user message board called “BeSpecific.”
Giles pops up all over, but this interview about what it’s like to be a British journalist is probably the best.
Lonnie turns up this fascinating 1971 camp photo, which might or might not be him.
And Leigh might or might not be this yoga instructor/university department secretary.
It’s like looking into the old mirror. Fascinating.
6 responses to “Google 2001 Search Reveals Nascent Cult of Mac Activities”
Oh, man, I’d totally forgotten that it was MacToolbox where I first started doing online stuff. But, good grief, my Mac was crashing constantly during the OS 9 period, and it was driving me crazy.
I got flamed good for that one, but not nearly as much as for “Why the new iMac sucks”, a piece of satire that went down in an ‘interesting’ manner with, er, ‘fanatic’ US Mac owners. http://tinyurl.com/3v9374 is the reprint.
Perhaps my favourite flame was from the interestingly named ‘Your worst nightmare’ and read, in full, “You might want to learn how to use a mac before writing an artical on one you fâ€â€Ââ€â€Âing winkie”. Quite.
Yes, I was a track & field star before I became a Mac pundit. I’m really glad Google wasn’t around in the 80s.
If you do a search for “iPhone” you get this:
http://web.archive.org/web/200…
iPhone 2050
# Send and receive e-mail
# Make phone calls
# Shop online
# Surf the Internet
# Read the news
# Check the weather
# Review sports statistics
# Access movie information
# Trade stocks
# Bank online
Hmmm… sounds familiar