Back in the early days of the internet, a lot of websites were hosted on Geocities, which was popular as it offered free hosting on one condition - you had to embed a small banner into your webpage advertising them. The banner image they provided was 88x31 pixels, and so many Geocities sites would include other external links as 88x31 images so that they matched the dimensions of the mandatory Geocities one.
https://neonaut.neocities.org/cyber/88x31 (link warning: lots of 88×31 GIFs!) says it's likely because the "Netscape Now!" button was of that size.
and I can't help but link to this cozy lil' gem https://www.cameronsworld.net/
It originated as a Commodore 64 320x200 image. Note how there are no color changes between 8x8 pixel blocks.
I forget the artist's first name, but I believe his last name was Sachs. He was a huge deal in 64 art in the 80's, and later transitioned to Amiga.
I think he did a fish tank screen saver, and I seem to recall a video game on the 64 where you flew flying saucers to destroy Washington, DC. Because he was an artist, the graphics were unlike anything else seen at the time on a home computer.
IE was the dominant browser at the time, and these propaganda buttons just reinforced the idea that IE was the only browser you should be using. Still see the odd site saying 'Works best in Chrome' as if Chrome was the new IE.
Personally though, if your site is one of those annoying SPA (Single Page Apps) and doesn't work in Lynx[1], you're doing it wrong IMHO.
Nearly tempted to put a button on my sites saying: 'Best viewed in Lynx'.
He was unamused when I started posting "screenshots" with "best viewed in ie" logos added.
A user agent spoof extension solves the problem because there's actually nothing used that Firefox doesn't support. Maybe there was, one day, but someone forgot to keep up, or didn't want to.
This has happened for me within the last 3 months with both a widely known financial application provider rhyming with "I'm a twit" and an educational software provider rhyming vaguely with "Crack jorts"
Netscape is also Mozilla's spiritual father.
Lynx didn't have JS support. Which was a blessing and a curse.
I was going to warn about this, but then I realized that's probably not even half of the average modern web page size =)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27500624 (124 comments)
And not in a bad way, but more in a "fashion isn't as fleeting in Japan". Also it seems that the new and the old are able to coexist in the mainstream there, more than in the West. But that's of course just an impression, I might be wrong.
Regardless, the mentality of ofjit ain't broke don't fix it is well engrained in J culture. It's something that I admire of the Japanese.
The 88x31 GIF Collection - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27500624 - June 2021 (124 comments)
