Cammy's Seamount Navigator
Weary from a fortnight tossed about aimlessly on the sea, with nothing more than pelicans for company, you collapse in bed in your bunk below the surface. It might very well be a journey you've taken many times before, but that doesn't make the hot sun that cooks the deck or the constant, swaying motion of your old ship any less unpleasant. And the lack of scenery! You sure do miss the angular cliffs and overhangs of home, that much is for sure.
As you lay there, trying to block out the rocking in your mind—it actually stops. Like you're on land again! You look out the window, and—nope, there's still water out there. It just...doesn't seem to be affecting the ship anymore. "What in the world?" you mumble under your breath as you stumble back out of the bunk to get a better look outside, still unsettled at how still things feel as you move around. Have we run aground?
That's when it gets particularly bizarre. Hovering along the starboard bow is another wooden ship, all by its lonesome, though much smaller than yours. A ginger badger with ridiculous hair lounges sprawled out inside, his eyes opening as he hears you approach from overhead.
"Hey!" he calls, sitting up, still wrapped in the forest green cape he keeps the sun off his shoulders with. "You were about to hit something, so I stopped your boat."
"You...stopped my boat."
"Yeah! It was a big ol' extinct volcano under the surface. Can you imagine it erupting, all the smoke and fire and chunks of molten rock thrown around? What a relic!"
"...But how did you stop my boat?"
"Eh, magic. I can show you all the cool things down here, if you want. Just throw a rope or something."
(Of course, if you want a more serious explanation of this little project of mine...)
Homely Sights
The only thing unifying these sites are they're personal, and often a smorgasbord of maintainer interests.
| Title |
Description |
Author/Maintainer |
Ghost ship? |
| Carol's Place |
An incredibly personal look into the life of a grandmother named Carol Abbott and her family, by Carol herself. Also known as "Caby's site in 20 years". (These are some really nice backgrounds...and there's writing too!) |
Carol Abbott |
Yes (2014) |
| David & Cecilia Taylor's Web Pages |
An old married couple residing in Scotland who just so happen to be giant weather and satellite nerds—by trade! A lot of hand-written freeware up for download, if you need an NTP monitor or perhaps something that can visualize HDF data. |
Dave Taylor |
No |
| Ernie's Homepage |
Better known by his pseudonym $$$MR. MARKET$$$, Ernie Barsamian is a God among men who can bench press 300lbs and loves Bruce Springsteen. He also happens to invest heavily in the stock market and runs a forum for picking stocks. |
Ernie Barsamian |
No |
| Philippe Huybrecht's Homepage |
The older, handmade site of a professor with Vrije Universiteit Brussel modeling ice and climate interactions. Some neat pictures of Antarctica and Greenland abound. Much more interesting than his current page. |
Philippe Huybrecht |
Yes (date unknown) |
| RetroWeb |
Most broadly, the homebase of a Virginia native IT guy, but more specifically, a huge collection of fansites for everything from historic railroad photos to classic TV shows to R.E.M. (I approve). Much of this material dates back to the mid 90s! |
Kipp Teague |
Yes (2014) |
| Rocket Roberts |
Astronomy, railroading, and vintage audio gear from a US Navy electronics engineer. Much of the focus on the more reminisce-y pages lies in the 70s, so if you're into old photographs, very much worth a peek. The pages on his teenage self's bedroom (all that audio gear! That antenna!) and this one on light pollution are two highly recommended reads. |
Joe Roberts |
Yes (2014) |
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Musical Artists
The sounds of the sea! And, well, just about every other genre out there. Some of these are bands, some of these are labels and netlabels, and others still are dedicated to the art of reviewing music.
| Title |
Description |
Author/Maintainer |
Ghost ship? |
| 20kbps |
The first significant "lo-bit" (MP3s encoded at a low bitrate) netlabel, dating back to 2003 or so. There's images bigger than some of these releases. The music's of a variety of indie, underground, noise, and electronic genres, so prepare for weirdness. |
Jonas Santoso |
No |
| Citizen Insane |
Extensive Radiohead discography, interview archive, and MP3 trove. Songs each get their own page exploring how they shaped up and their appearances across bootlegs, merch, and Radiohead's official site. |
Unknown |
No |
| FMQ |
A fansite about Freddie Mercury of Queen fame. Detailed, broken down into different stages of his life, interests, and filled with pictures. |
Daria Kokozej |
Yes (2014) |
| Loobiecore |
Lou Barlow's (of Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr. fame) official site. Unlike most official artist sites, it's all built with handwriting and scribbles and has MP3s and cat pictures to consume. Tell me this isn't a trip to read. |
Lou Barlow |
Yes (2011) |
| Mark Headrick's General MIDI Page |
A neat collection of MIDI renditions of songs from all across pop culture, both for download and playable on the page itself. A computer with dedicated MIDI capabilities (or at least VirtualMIDISynth) recommended. |
Mark Headrick |
No |
| Metempsychosis |
A now-defunct (but still online!) music collective that hosted releases from independent electronic musicians from 1999 to 2005. Much like our own site network, Metem hosts minisites for all the musicians who've been invited into the collective. |
Metem mailing list |
Yes (2010) |
| Yeah I Know It Sucks |
A collection of kooks reviewing indie and netlabel music. Expect bizarre rambles, curiously vivid descriptions, and incomprehensible genre names. (They have reviewed an EP from yours truly, it should be noted.) |
Buncha people |
No |
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Nautical Manuals
It's not the most exciting section, but still a useful shelf to have around. After all, even the boat needs instructions, yeah?
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Scientific Matters
The wonders of the world around us! Things high above our heads and things we can't even begin to see...
| Title |
Description |
Author/Maintainer |
Ghost ship? |
| collectSPACE |
A frequently-updated news feed of space, space memorabilia, and NASA matters. Features a forum for memorabilia collectors and other space enthusiasts. |
Robert Pearlman |
No |
| Tiger Minerals |
Lovely, vibrant pictures of chunks of minerals from all 50 states, plus some worldwide. My home state doesn't have too many, but a place like Arizona is chock-full of glistening orange and green beauties. |
Bob Weaver |
Yes (2020) |
| The Virtual Cave |
Wind caves, sea caves, lava tubes, caves of all types, right on the Web! Plenty of neat explanations on how these towering caverns form, with plenty of fascinating pictures to peek at along the way. |
Dave Bunnell |
Yes (2016) |
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Technology
Circuits and processors and machinery I don't fully understand, but fascinating reads nonetheless. (Note: I will never—never—list anything Linux-related or FOSS-related here. It's a boring, dreadful, masturbatory topic. Write about something more interesting.)
| Title |
Description |
Author/Maintainer |
Ghost ship? |
| ALTEXXANET |
A throwback host for various 90s internet services, notably Usenet, Gopher, and Hotline, all of which have servers under the ALTEXXANET header. Lots of old software and files to download. |
Paul Lezica |
Yes (2016) |
| Cornica |
A video hosting site geared towards users of classic (mid-PPC era) Macintoshes. Proudly boasts of its support for Netscape 4.x and use of QuickTime. |
Nicolas Bahamondes |
No |
| The DOS Operating System |
An impressively sprawling center for information about using various flavors of DOS, both for beginners and power users alike. Book recommendations, reference material, and questionable humor abound. |
Doctor DOS Betamax |
No |
| The Gryphel Project |
A classic Mac (68k-era) preservation project, most notably offering the Mini vMac emulator for emulating various compact Macs and Macintosh IIs. Disk images and much 68k Mac reference material are also available. |
Paul C. Pratt |
No |
| The Long View |
A blog examining the Macintosh's designs and software trends through the early 80s onwards. These are long reads, so buckle in. And it's built with iWeb, so you know it's gotta be good! |
basalgangster |
No |
| RareWares |
Specializes in hard-to-find encoders and players for various audio formats. Prebuilt Lame binaries are one of the many useful things available. (Its sister site ReallyRareWares, which is more geared at obsolete media, is even more fun to browse.) |
Roberto Amorim |
No |
| System 7 Today |
A useful resource for getting Macs running System 7 humming along in the modern era. Though no longer updated (and the forums are now read-only), it's still a fun browse with a great old-school layout that might very well work on your System 7 machine. |
Dan Palka |
Yes (2016) |
| Z80 Family Official Support Page |
A treasure trove of technical information, assembly source code, and projects based on the Zilog Z80, used in everything from the Sega Master System to the ZX Spectrum to the Ti-83. Check out that radical logo. |
Gaby Chaudry |
No |
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Video Games
Granted, none new! But still, those digital opiates that interact through buttons, keys, or touching...
| Title |
Description |
Author/Maintainer |
Ghost ship? |
| AtariArchives |
HTMLized versions of classic Atari programming literature, mainly for the 8-bit computers. Efforts continue, though scans are now posted to the Internet Archive. |
Kevin Savetz |
Yes (2014) |
| AtariProtos |
Reviews and in-depth discussions of prototypes of Atari games for the 2600, 5200, 7800, and 8-bit computers. Occasional other material sprinkled about, namely the Rumor Mill for reported but unsurfaced prototypes. |
Matt Reichert |
No |
| Cava's Pixel Resources |
Creative Commons Recreations of pixel fonts from games like Ace Attorney, Chrono Trigger,, Mega Man, and NBA Jam. Fonts come with hundreds of characters in Latin, hiragana, and katakana character sets where relevant, and in a variety of font formats for use on sites. |
Cava |
No |
| FPS Legends |
A variety of retro FPS games from the 90s into the 2000s for download in both raw disk image and patched with popular mods form. Can vouch, I've gotten much material for Quake, No One Lives Forever, and Turok 2 here. |
emoaddict15 |
Yes (2013) |
| Lemmy's Land |
A Super Mario fansite written from the perspective of one of the Koopalings. Want MIDIs? He's got 'em. Game guides for any and all of the Mario games? Yep. Bizarre fanfic? Yessir. |
Lemmy Koopa(?) |
No |
| The Mage's Tower of Hexen |
Mods, both new and old for Heretic, Hexen, and Hexen II, all mid-90s PC FPS games. Very recently (as of 2021) introduced a Quake II section. |
Hexen Star |
No |
| Tau Ceti |
An old-school QuakeWorld server run on a PowerMac G3. Plenty of software and accessories like backgrounds and documentation to peek through if you're a vintage Mac geek. |
Unknown |
No |
| The Video Game Critic |
Reviews of damn near every console video game ever released, from the Fairchild Channel F to the PS4. Many hardware and miscellaneous reviews abound and features a tight-knit forum of readers. |
Dave Mrozek |
No |
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Webcomics
That which tells tales in panelled form...
| Title |
Description |
Author/Maintainer |
Ghost ship? |
| Lackadaisy |
A comic about a speakeasy set during Prohibition, and all the people involved are cats. Been going since 2006 and Caby's in love with it. And how could she not, it's gorgeous! |
Tracy Butler |
No |
| Mab's Land |
The former homepage of the girl behind Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures. I link here instead of to the comic directly because it's old-school Web fun and that's what we're here for. Home of those censorship pandas you might've seen around. |
Amber Williams |
Yes (2008) |
| Misty |
A furry comic about an oddball Pagan kitty attending university. Failed after three attempts and last updated in 2006. Mostly fascinating for the incredibly handmade, edgy, Web 1.0 vibe and old-school scanned traditional art style. Surprisingly large site too. |
Aissys Sparkstealer |
Yes (2006) |
| Platypus Comix |
One half the maintainer's comics, one half his treasure trove of 80s and 90s pop culture refuse. Transfers of off-air VHS tapes, commercials, magazine scans, focused on the strange and the forgotten. Updates regularly. I recommend my favorite page on the whole site to start with, as before. |
Peter Paltridge |
No |
| The Thief of Tales |
The story of a thief named Nevhna, pursued into a strange forest for stealing a book and enchanting the talking wildlife with her stories to get them on her side. The artist draws adorable badgers, so bonus points for that. |
Guillaume Bonnet |
No |
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Maintained with pride by a badger boy named Cammy. Contact him here.
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