By CHRIS LYKINS
Gazette-Enterprise
Sites offer a look back into past fun
Since the early days of the modern Internet things have changed. We've gone
from simple text pages with blue hypertext links to full motion video with
sound. We've gone from rudimentary graphics to Flash-based navigation
systems that swirl and pulse as your mouse moves across the screen.
This is an entirely different animal than the one that I remember when I
first started in the early 90's with a crude Web browser called Mosaic,
which would eventually give way to Netscape and a text-based browser called
Lynx which is still around but can't do much with today's Web sites.
While it may be a vastly different landscape today than it was back then -a
vastly more commercialized landscape as well with pop-up ads, pop-under ads,
pop-over ads making surfing an increasingly frustrating affair - it is a
medium that is still very much about communication.
While television is a passive event, the Internet is active, requiring
something of the user besides flipping a switch.
It allows us to talk with people we never would have been able to before,
communicate ideas and thoughts and enjoy what has become a lost art
-listening.
While it can provide a portal to diversity, it can also help tie groups of
people together with their common bonds, shared experiences - and let's face
it - nostalgia.
The nostalgia niche on the Internet is huge and growing as people rush to
reclaim childhood memories with technology as their tool.
For most people my age, video games played a large part in our childhood.
from the fake wood paneling on the front of the Atari 2600 to the original
boxy Nintendo which breathed new life into what was a struggling industry.
That tinny, dink and dunk MIDI music of those early days still bring smiles
to the faces of many. Now there is a Web site dedicated to help keeping that
music alive with remixes of the original tunes by contributors.
The site, http://remix.overclocked.org says its goal is to "To honor and
appreciate the often-overlooked men and women who write quality music for a
medium that is too frequently considered to be 'disposable'"
You can learn a little more about the site at http://remix.overclocked.org/faq.php
Pac-Man as an electronic disco dance mix? Check. A symphonic version of the
original Super Mario Bros tune, a jazzy version of the addicting theme from
Super Mario Bros 2 and a punk rock version of Punch Out are all here to take
you down an updated stroll down memory lane.
From the first tune on, you can see that this is a labor of love for both
the site's maintainer as well as the contributors.
Before the Internet, an experience like this would have been extremely
Difficult. Now people have a way to "gather" together to help keep the
beat alive even if its just the background music to a blob of yellow pixels
running through a maze trying to avoid ghosts.
There are a number of other sites out there for classic video game aficionados including http://www.classicgaming.com, which covers everything from emulation of classic systems to releases of new software based on those old games.
Both sites give people looking to reminisce a place to start and gives the younger generation an opportunity to see what some of their parents or older brothers and sisters did growing up.
Chris Lykins is the online editor/systems administrator for the
Gazette-Enterprise. He can be e-mailed at web@seguingazette.com
To contribute to the Internet Beat column contact Gloria R. Rivera at