<Previous
Next>
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
|