Websites - Wayback™ When
Kirt's Cogitations™ #255

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Websites - Wayback™ When

It is interesting to see how familiar websites have evolved over the years. If you began using the Internet when I did back in the early 1990s, you remember the 4800 baud dialup connections and watching the little globe on the Mosaic browser spin round and round while waiting for a website to appear. Your anticipation with each new website was a mixture of emotions - willing to suffer the long download times for the treat of seeing cool looking graphics (VGA quality in 256 colors if you were lucky), but being somewhat relieved by all text in order to have a reasonable page load time. Still, it was a big improvement over dialing into local bulletin board services, using a copy of Kermit in hopes of finding a useful file. CompuServe and AOL made things a bit better for the layman... for a while.

Page content has greatly increased over time for a number of reasons, mainly due to larger display sizes, faster connections, and the importance of conveying as much relevant information as possible on a single page. As recently as the year 2000, standard computer display screen resolution was still somewhere around 800 x 600 pixels (today it is 1024 x 768). Also as of 2000, most home users had a dialup connection with speeds in the 56k baud range, although actually getting a connection anywhere near 56k baud was rare. Even wireless portable devices of today are realizing data transfer speeds better than what we had ten years ago, so tolerating loading of modest size pages is fairly easy. Finally, as the Internet became an increasingly important venue for conducting business, gathering information and, more recently, personal relationships (sigh!), web page content increased in hopes of wowing and capturing the interest of visitors, thereby having them realize that yours is the best page they have ever found and is worth bookmarking for frequent returns.

In the early days of the Internet, conscientious web designers attempted to use minimal graphics and rely on thoughtful page layout using HTML formatting to place text and tables in strategic areas to give the illusion of a graphical page without the bandwidth burden. Unbelievably, there were websites that consisted of a single large graphic that contained all the pictures and text; they took forever to load and presented you with a blank screen until all the bits had transferred. Overly wasteful Flash type entry screens are modern day equivalents of that. Many of us studied reports on Web user likes and dislikes for site features, and attempted to accommodate those wishes so as to maximize the visitor's positive impression.

As time went by and broadband connections sped up, it became possible to integrate a larger amount of graphics and text to present more information to the visitor without the time penalty. Search engine optimization (SEO) now dominates web page design philosophy more than anything else since it can profoundly affect the order in which pages are returned during searches. While page ranking algorithms (PageRank) are very complex, the most highly weighted factor is the number of websites that link back to your website, although existing traffic to the page is also a strong contributor.

The Wayback™ Machine, provided by the website Archive.org, captures and stores snapshots of web pages over time, so you can go there, enter the website address of interest, and probably discover what the website looked like many years ago. It contains almost 2 petabytes of data and is currently growing at a rate of 20 terabytes per month. "This eclipses the amount of text contained in the world's largest libraries, including the Library of Congress." Records begin around 1996.

For those how are not familiar with the concept, the Wayback Machine was first a feature of a cartoon from back in the 1960s. It was used by Mr. Peabody (a talking dog) as part of his "Peabody's Improbable History" program where he and his trusty boy companion, Sherman (no, he doesn't bark), travel back in time to explore an inane version of bygone world and U.S. events. It was corny.

Archival websites like Archive.org, Google, and others, are used quite often by law enforcement and legal researchers to gather evidence for trials. Recent events in U.S. politics have exposed situations where websites would pull down information after a public outcry had challenged a person or organization for their statements and/or policies. People are learning that in this Information Age, everything they say can and will be used against them, even if they thought it was only to be seen/heard by a privileged few. Even employers are searching archives of web pages in their vetting of potential employees. You have been warned.

I decided to take a look at what the websites of RF Cafe's advertisers looked like in the days of yore. Most had at least one screen shot in the archives. All screen captures are done in the same browser window size (just wide enough to enclose the RF Cafe screen), and then proportionally resized to a common height, so the change in page width is apparent. Some web pages were (and still are) set up to automatically fill the available browser width, like RFMD's, so a width comparison is not possible. They are in random order below, so you might want to do a Crtl+F to search for a company name on the screen.

In some cases the company is a conglomeration of multiple other formerly independent companies, like with Spectrum Microwave which includes the former Salisbury Engineering, Q-Bit, Amplifonix, and others. With those, I tried to find examples of the former company's web pages. Also, for some reason the Wayback™ Machine does not always capture the graphic images associated with the page, so in the place of the intended images are the white placeholders and the annoying little red "x." Because of that, I do not always have the earliest available screen shot here, but instead used the most complete page available. Some websites are so new that the Wayback™ Machine has not found them yet.

You can see in the first example that RF Cafe has changed just a little since its inception in 1999. It was originally a step up from my RFTools website on the AOL personal homepage system. RFTools.com was not available, and the [Something]Cafe.com type names were popular at the time, so RFCafe.com was born. It has since grown to be a major player in the RF engineering web space. Because of dedicated visitors (like you), my many advertisers have provided the opportunity for me to run RF Cafe on a full-time basis. Thanks to them and to you.

Let me know if you would like to have your company's website added to the list.

RF Cafe - 1999	RF Cafe - 2009
Anatech Electronics AMCrf 2004	Anatech Electronics AMCrf 2009
GigaLane 2002	GigaLane 2009
Stealth Microwave 2004	Stealth Microwave 2009
RF Micro Devices 1997	RF Micro Devices 2009
Narda Microwave East 2000	Narda Microwave East 2009
Amplifonix          Q-Bit      1999             2000 Salisbury Engineering 1996	Spectrum Microwave 2009
antennas.us 2002	antennas.us 2009
Alliance Test Equipment 2005	Alliance Test Equipment 2009
Z-Communications 1996	Z-Communications 2009
Instruments for Industry (IFI) - 1996	Instruments for Industry (IFI) - 2009
Axsem 2007	Axsem 2009
3Gmetalworx 2003	3Gmetalworx 2009
Zeland Software 1997	Zeland Software 2009
American Microwave 2003	American Microwave 2009
Dow-Key Microwave 1997	Dow-Key Microwave 2009
Pulsar Microwave 2000	Pulsar Microwave 2009
RFAC Solutions 2005	RFAC Solutions 2009
BC Power Systems 1997	BC Power Systems 2009
PCB Material World 2006	PCB Material World 2009
Haynes-Bent 2004	Haynes-Bent 2009
Lemos International 2000	Lemos International 2009
Applied Computational Sciences (ACS) 2001	Applied Computational Sciences (ACS) 2009
Test Equipment Connection 2000	Test Equipment Connection 2009
Amplifier Solutions 2004	Amplifier Solutions 2009
Networks International 1999	Networks International 2009
JQL Electronics 2003	JQL Electronics 2009
Wenteq 2003	Wenteq 2009
American Standard Circuits 2001	American Standard Circuits 2009
vidaRF 2007	vidaRF 2009
Advanced Test Equipment Rentals 1997	Advanced Test Equipment Rentals 2009
Reactel 2000	Reactel 2009
Tharsus Engineering 2001	Tharsus Engineering 2009
Coaxial Dynamics 1996	Coaxial Dynamics 2009
PedaSoft 2007	PedaSoft 2009
Procyon PCB 2004	Procyon PCB 2009
Analog Devices 1997	Analog Devices 2009
JFW Industries 1997	JFW Industries 2009
Linx Technologies 1999	Linx Technologies 2009
Skyworks Solutions 2003	Skyworks Solutions 2009
Orbel 2001	Orbel 2009
Antenna Factor 1999	Antenna Factor 2009
RFHIC 2001	RFHIC 2009
Jyebao 1998	Jyebao 2009
European Antennas - 2000 (now part of Cobham)	European Antennas - 2009 (now part of Cobham)
MECA Electronics 2001	MECA Electronics 2009
Connector City 2001	Connector City 2009
Innovative Power Products 2006	Innovative Power Products 2009
Microphase 1997	Microphase 2009
Amplical 2004	Amplical 2009
NuWaves Engineering 2003	NuWaves Engineering 2009
Colby Instruments 2004	Colby Instruments 2009
Noise/Com 2002	Noise/Com 2009
Microwave Circuits 2004	Microwave Circuits 2009
Highland Technology 1998	Highland Technology 2009
Isotec 2005	Isotec 2009
Empower RF Systems 2002	Empower RF Systems 2009
Praxsym 1999	Praxsym 2009
RF Dude 2002	RF Dude 2009
Applied Wave Research 2004	Applied Wave Research 2009
RFtronics 2006	RFtronics 2009
Noisewave 2005	Noisewave 2009
Polyphase Microwave 2005	Polyphase Microwave 2009
KR Electronics 2000	KR Electronics 2009
Comdel 2000	Comdel 2009
Star Microwave 2004	Star Microwave 2009
Fotofab 2001	Fotofab 2009
Sunshine Design Engineering Services 2003	Sunshine Design Engineering Services 2009
Vector Telecom 2007	Vector Telecom 2009
Boonton 1998	Boonton 2009

Posted September 8, 2009