Guestbooks: the cozy 90s web fad which shaped the future!

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Sign my guestbook: gb.donttrythis.net
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Guestbooks. You know them. Or do you?
In today's 90s-tastic episode of Veronica Explains, I go through the ins and outs of the guestbook, one of the most influential progenitors of modern social media on the web.
We'll even install one from the 90s - yes, from Matt's Script Archive, on a brand new Debian 11 install. It'll be "fun-tertainment!" Come break some Perl with me!
0:00 I say "greetings" and talk about guestbooks
1:31 How I used guestbooks as a 90s teen
5:50 How were guestbooks implemented?
8:16 Can we set up a guestbook today?
8:57 Testing Perl CGI scripts... in 2023
10:45 Installing a guestbook script
14:17 Filtering for spammers- with math!
15:15 Pining for the 1990s web, looking forward to the future
#linux #webdesign #retro

[@VeronicaExplains]

Hi all! Pinning a comment! The guestbook might experience high load just after posting this video. I'm seeing comments to that end- if you get a server error, make sure you answered the math quiz right, and try again. It's a nearly 30 year old CGI script, it's *not* optimized for multiple concurrent connections. That's what the old web was like (but we didn't have KZbin videos sending hundreds of visitors to websites, either). Anyway, good luck, and happy guestbooking!

[@aaron_11111]

I really enjoy this type of video. A few months ago I mentioned dial-up-internet to a co worker and they had no idea what I was on about. When I explained the dial up process they were surprised (almost in disbelieve).

[@danielktdoranie]

Oh I wanna sign YOUR guestbook. No, I really do, that’s not a euphemism

[@VeronicaExplains]

Addendum! I will not be responding to comments about GIF vs GIF. Potato potato, tomato tomato. Language is flexible and you should be too. :)

[@danielktdoranie]

@@VeronicaExplains In am VERY flexible. Like Gumby over here.

[@wintermute740]

We *did* have /. sending hundreds of visitors to websites, though. And later, fark. ;)

[@TheBlueThird]

It would be awesome if you could do a series on the old web. I really do miss those days.

[@AndrewErwin73]

I accessed the internet through my local library's BBS (mid to late 80s)... way before there was a world wide web. I think that is why I have always gotten along with the Linux terminal so well. It is how I learned to "surf" in the first place.

[@dingokidneys]

I too would love to hear more of Veronica's experiences with the early web. Unfortunately, I was too old to really get into it at the time as I had a wife, two kids and a crushing mortgage to take care of with a job that only allowed me (officially) to work with mundane office computer applications. Networking was "the dark arts" to which I was inexorably drawn.

[@experimental0000]

Same.

[@Yep6803]

On old OS! It would be interesting also on modem… I mean, it would be a dream. I was born in ‘96 and I saw the last years of this.

[@MrFIRESEAL117]

That would be awesome. I'm very nostalgic about the 90s internet . It was like a new frontier. We were all just figuring it out together.

[@EricaCalman]

"Just enough PERL to be dangerous" sounds like a description of an entire generation of low key hackers and should be the name of your album if you release one haha.

[@VeronicaExplains]

This is a great idea for an album name.

[@dingokidneys]

I was a corporate accountant since the late 1980's but I used Perl all the time for data manipulation. I built whole systems to handle reporting, data validation, and data conversion using Perl and loved it. Perl4 was a great language for this stuff as it was compact and I could get away with putting it on corporate systems as a single binary.

[@Danielspss]

😂😂 sounds cool asf

[@thatjpwing]

I love this! I miss the spirit of the 90s web too. We had so much fun back in the day. These days it's a different kind of adventure.

[@VeronicaExplains]

Absolutely. It was a blast figuring out how all of this was going to work in our lives.

[@diabeticnomad]

@djsupercub now a totally different kind of adventure. @VeronicaExplains thank you for reminding me how old I am

[@jcparker500]

As an old geezer I lived through all of this. First as a SysOp running a BBS until the Internet came along and ruined that, then as a webmaster after that. Had it all - the web rings, guest books, PhP forums. Good times! I do miss those days when the Internet was so much simpler and naive. Of course, I don't miss things like having to use RealPlayer to watch videos! Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

[@DV-ml4fm]

I remembered the internet in the nineties. I remembered asking if anyone is going to use the phone before connecting to the web. Lol

[@20000lbs_of_Cheese]

and getting knocked offline when someone picked up the phone... or doing so maliciously >:(

[@VeronicaExplains]

Right in the middle of a game of Descent!

[@DV-ml4fm]

The good ol' days. Lol 🙂

[@dingokidneys]

I was old enough to get on-line when the kids and the missus had gone to bed. Too bad about work the next day. :(

[@DV-ml4fm]

​@Veronica Explains BBS also allows messaging. And among other things. 🙂

[@keylowmike85]

As someone that was a teenager in the later 90s and early 00s, I decree that guestbooks, Geocities, and 56K modems are the cornerstones of early web surfing. Thanks for that nostalgia trip!

[@I.____.....__...__]

You've obviously never stayed up to 3am trying to download a 300kb file from a BBS and waiting for LotRD to reset over a 2400/14.4, hoping to get an hour of sleep before having to go to school to write an exam.

[@dingokidneys]

We used to dream of 56K modems! My first modem was a Netcomm 14400 baud (14K) modem and I was lucky to get that. The naughty pictures came down really slowly in those days!

[@vicmac3513]

In my friendhood, geocites defined the word "bloatware" with all the pop-ups and blinqy sites.

[@byron_00]

@@dingokidneys I used to dream of 14K baud modems. My first modem was a 300 baud on a VIC 20. The lab modems in my school at the time were a mix of 110 and 300 baud. The days of a non-commercialized online experience were glorious.

[@LeftoverBeefcake]

This whole internet website thing is still just a fad and will fizzle out any day now.

[@VeronicaExplains]

I think zip disks will be the next thing!

[@suddenlyvlogs]

An old web series would be awesome! Also the Comment Bin had me HOWLING 🤣🤣🤣

[@balcobulls]

I must say, the wave of nostalgia that washed over me while watching this episode was great. As a devoted fan of your channel, I find that immersing myself in your content has a effect of slowing down the pace of life for a few minutes. Your unique ability to transport us back in time while still incorporating modern knowledge is truly impressive and greatly appreciated.

[@bassism]

I like these looks back at the ancient web. I built my first website in 96, at 8 years old…. A couple of links to aviation related pages, a photo gallery, ugly pixel art backgrounds, a spinning GIF prop I made myself, and, of course, a guest book. There is no way I could have foreseen where we would end up. Things just hit different back then. That page had less content than a typical Reddit post, but I poured my heart and soul into it. I regularly checked back on it right up until the school took it offline sometime around University. It was always a nice feeling to see some guestbook comment from somebody half way round the world. Still remember the URL and hit it up in the way back machine from time to time, lol

[@HisVirusness]

Signed. That feeling of being taken back to the actual guestbook, and not seeing your comment because you know you have to refresh the page. Unironically nostalgic.

[@hopegrant1167]

Took me back 28 years in a split second when you showed Matt's Script Archive! I had completely forgotten about a major resource for me back in the day when learning Perl :-)

[@geoffmerritt]

Tables, Dreamweaver, cgi-bins... the memories are flooding back

[@VeronicaExplains]

I might have an old version of Dreamweaver somewhere in my cd wallet. I know I have a FrontPage- I'm hoping to do a video on it sometime, perhaps later this year.

[@happysprollie]

I think a museum somewhere should be creating a collection of all those GIFs saying 'under construction'. When I first started mucking about with creating web pages, I really needed one saying 'I have no idea what I'm doing'.

[@schnuder]

I had almost forgotten about guestbooks. As someone who learned to surf the web on a NeXT Cube in a university lab while waiting on scientific experiments with hands-off portions to complete, aka sitting and waiting; and learned html when tables were first introduced. This is a level of behind the scene complexity that is fascinating that I didn’t understand at the time, as I just copied and pasted code like you. I’d love to see more dives back into things like webrings worked and lead up to our modern internet.

[@I.____.....__...__]

Um, most of the "web rings" were for "mature audiences". That's pretty much it. I do recall some general-purpose stuff for various "fandoms", but most were for kids' stuff.

[@WistrelChianti]

My god... I'd completely forgotten about these things ha ha. Love the video and modern implementation explainer. Thanks for taking me back XD

[@CraftComputing]

I love this channel. Excellent aesthetics, and a chill tone. - Jeff, Oregon Also, excellent ploy to drive comment engagement on videos 🙂

[@VeronicaExplains]

I've been seen!

[@davidwesst]

Y'all are great. I haven't thought of guestbooks in forever. Would love to see more videos on parts of the 90s web scene, especially the tech bits.

[@etgripper]

I still remeber packing pillows behind the computer late at night so my parents wouldn’t wake up, either the modem sounds couldn’t be muted or I didn’t know how to mute them at the time. But they’d figure it out anyway when the Gemstone bill came 😢

[@VektrumSimulacrum]

I remember back in the day when html was the big thing and typing on a computer was pushed extra hard. Typing is more of a given these days. Gawd that makes me feel old.

[@TheHivan]

thank you for taking me back to my teenage years for a moment

[@tkay42]

Wooooooow. I realy forgot this and would never ever tought about it again, if it was'nt for you. Thanks for that! 😃 - Crazy memorys about the Guestbook 😂

[@wintermute740]

I re-purposed my BBS phone line to the one I used for Internet access, then set up a Linux server on my network and had it setup to maintain my dial-up connection 24/7. So, I ran my own web server, over dialup, no less, even in the mid-90s. And yes, I ran my own guestbook, which I wrote myself in php. I also had a counter, but after July 15, 2001, instead of tracking visitors, it tracked how many times CodeRed attempted to infect my server. Which was a lot. lol Makes me wonder... How many infected IIS servers are still out there trying to propagate that worm? Maybe I should parse my Apache logs the way I did back in the day for that counter and see if it's hit my current server since setting it up. lol

[@queens.dee.223]

I totally forgot about guestbooks. Thank you for the quick bit of unexpected nostalgia! edit: And FF6 sound effects! Amazing!

[@Mauuuurice]

Ooooh... I remember writing all those perl scripts back then. And I remember how thrilled I was, when I found a provider offering 2MB of free hosting webspace...

[@mudi2000a]

What a flashback! I forgot they even existed...

[@blevenzon]

Love this!! Thank you as always Veronica

[@Weissenschenkel]

I like the idea and I went there to sign your guestbook too. Cheers! (I started browsing the internet in mid-1995 during my graduation)

[@Jammet]

There already were a lot of toxic messages back then even in the guestbooks. Even in mine, which was on a Fan page for the Lion King. Can you imagine that. The worst I remember was a life threat, that actually was traceable to a certain person and I had to call the police to get it straightened out. And no it wasn't the norm -- most of it was wonderful. But yeah, online harassment existed since online existed, I guess.

[@ricksanchez207]

love the Blizzard references!

[@AndrewErwin73]

Perl is still a thing! Latest release was less than a year ago! :) Perl was cool back then, it was a lot like Python now, as in, everything is already there. Whatever you want to do, there is probably a library for it.

[@dingokidneys]

I loved Perl, particulary Perl4 which I could get on a Windows machine with a single binary.

[@AndrewErwin73]

@@dingokidneys no doubt. Perl was cool... everything was there, and you could even compile into executable bins! Haven't used it in a REALLY long time. But Python reminds me a lot of it.

[@noranature]

yeah, guest books. I totally forgot about that. what a feeling to be reminded of it again. Thanks Veronica

[@antarchy9]

Wrote a few of those CGI scripts back the day. Glad I discovered this channel, thank you!

[@fourteen00]

I actually thought about this a few months ago, all of the local funeral homes in my area have virtual guestbooks on their obituary pages still.

[@jscollett]

I miss the early web. It was so exciting and new. I also enjoyed the simplicity.

[@AlexAutrey]

The only thing I dont miss about this is writing the perl to santize the txt document where all the comments were saved. The erra of the CGI script was so excited when PHP came out and you could interact with a database easier.

[@alanjrobertson]

Great video, Veronica - I remember GeoCities well - nice marquee tag, visitor counter and yes, as you say, guestbook 😁🤓

[@1olddoggie]

Another great video!

[@rebeccaschade3987]

I love your twisted pair T-shirt. It's amazing ^^

[@certs743]

This was a fun blast from the past.

[@feudiable]

16:42 " ... 'cause guestbooks are awesome, and so are YOU!" :D

[@bjornroesbeke]

Guestbooks. I've made some, i've left notes in some, i've shown my inner scriptkiddie in them... I miss the old(er) web sometimes. And i've learned some Perl today!

[@jaygreentree4394]

I kinda miss those days. tripod surprisingly still exist and dont seem to have changed much at all. I still have a login system a friend and I build in perl hosted there.

[@sweetasdude]

Well this was a walk down memory lane, subbed.

[@eveypea]

I would love to see the older quirks of the web and please please please do a video on web-rings.

[@meowcula]

please Vernica - I would love if you covered more of the early web. I remember the horrors!

[@timothy8428]

Oh,wow! Webrings. Haven't heard of them since the last time I saw a 'page under construction' animated gif.

[@gotoastal]

I would like to see a video on XMPP; where Jabber came from, how Pidgin and other libpurple-supported, multi-platform instant messengers worked (AIM, MSN, YIM, ICQ), what MUCs are, how modern XMPP has evolved with XEPs for contemporary chat, and a brief explanation of how and why you would self-host and administer a decentralized ejabberd or Prosody server

[@BillyDickson]

A little nod to an older and more interesting online time, I remember it fondly, thank you! I would love to hear your thoughts on IRC. 🎶👍

[@vicmac3513]

"Welcome to the thrilling episode" = morning coffee allover my keyboard

[@tarbyonlineful]

Would love you to do more 90’s videos! ❤

[@Mitsunee_]

so fun seeing Astro in the screenshot where you show that interest in Static Site Generators is there currently. I tried Astro and it feels like I went back to PHP but with way nicer syntax and all the tools and knowledge aquired as a frontend dev in the past half a decade. I've even finally learned a tool in rehype (part of unified) that would allow me to write my own guestbook that allows some html, but no scripts, embeds or images :)

[@discomallard69]

Very nice video! It would be nice to see more about retro website design in general.

[@darryllyle5250]

This absolutely took me back. Also, remember when there were not only Internet Providers but e-mail providers as well? There was a Juno service that had dial-up e-mail.

[@eDoc2020]

My (late) grandfather was still on Juno until he lest this decade.

[@dunny0]

I'd totally forgotten about webrings until now. My janky anglefire site was part of a star trek one. Good times.

[@ScottGrammer]

I had entirely forgotten about Internet guestbooks. Thanks for reminding me of them.

[@randomactsofvideos313]

Hi Veronica, love your channel! You are correct. Back then ya needed to know something about putting up a website or associated interactive programming, these days nah ... I love the the old web.

[@El-Gato-42]

This takes me back. Back in the day I wrote cgi scripts with bash and C.

[@borstenpinsel]

Well, that was an unexpected blast from the past... I've used and even programmed my fair share of guest books some 20 years ago. The Internet seemed more innocent but I wouldn't exchange it for the one we have today with the likes of youtube, for any price.

[@michaelmccoy6674]

I've been having a lot of fun exploring 90s style sites on neocities. People have set up webrings, sites with guestbooks and lot of other cool stuff there

[@erforado]

tnx veronica,i didnt understand what u say ,but it was fun:)

[@lawrencemanning]

My first website was on the uni “server”, which was just another HP UX workstation. This was 1995. Of course I had a guest book, stolen from somewhere. I miss those days, I admit it. I remember replying to the first spam I received, not really understanding that it was an automated email. Happy, innocent days.

[@oasntet]

Back when we were complaining about Perpetual September, we had no idea how good we had it.

[@joaojotta64]

Didn't get your shirt at first (thought it was about web safe colors or something) but then it "connected". 😅 Great one!

[@VeronicaExplains]

I see what you did there!

[@ecavero1]

I thought the only way to do guestbooks was to store the post in a database (or other file) and use the serverside to read them. It didn't occur to me I could edit the page itself! Then again, I was self taught. The only thing I knew was ASP and VBScript. I didn't know how to use the cgi-bin. I found out ages later, but I couldn't get other binaries to work. I also didn't know about Apache or any other web server; only my small and powerful Personal Web Server. I could even publish anything I wanted from the IP my ISP gave me! I didn't know how to put a domain name behind it, and I didn't have money to buy one, anyway, so I gave the IP address! The good old days!

[@dastafford]

I miss livejournal and having the space of writing out your feelings without regretting it 5 minutes later.

[@mikebrophy]

Speaking of “pine” you should do an episode on the PINE email/Usenet client!

[@ianrandy]

I love the nostalgia, more would be excellent

[@k1ll3rkoala]

I've been looking into "indie web" stuff in nostalgia for this old web.

[@calibby]

This reminded me of AIM Subprofiles … remember that era? I used to host my own once I figured out how they worked

[@WXLM-MorganNicole619]

Yes, I’d like to see more about ancient web tech ❤❤

[@fluidsc_]

I really miss guestbooks, and even more than that BBSes, and oneliner doors when you login to a BBS ;)

[@Brian.S]

Let's not forget the dozens of website "awards" in those days, each with its own arbitrary criteria.

[@elizabeththompson4424]

I remember BBS's & a primitive internet in the late 1980' & early 1990's never heard of this

[@user-pc9th4xr6i]

I'd love to hear more about webrings!

[@airjuri]

Haha, kläsik. My first PHP project was somekind of guestbook back in late 90's :D

[@fotografm]

Web ? Great video. Please do one on 300 baud dialup BBSs that used to be all the rage 🙂

[@ringo8410]

Yeah please do cover parts of the 'old' internet; this was a fun walk on memory lane. I was a '90s teen myself and I miss the days before the more corporate internet that tracks our every move.

[@Verifraudreports]

Tripod and geo cities. Haven't heard that in a while. Guess i qualify as super geek og.

[@dajelinux]

I wrote tons of HTML tables in my teens!

[@AlanElChato]

Hey Veronica! Man, Guestbooks, huh? I love them, used to use them a lot back in the day and I wanted to write something on your GB buuuut I keep getting a Server Error ):

[@VeronicaExplains]

It's getting hit a lot right now. It's a very old script so it doesn't scale well to KZbin! :P

[@AlanElChato]

@@VeronicaExplains Damn, well I guess nobody will see my GuessBook entry ): Anyways, thanks for answering Veronica, keep up the good work Cheers!

[@paulodelgado6281]

GEOCITIES GANG RISE UP!!!! I can't even remember what neighborhood I was on :(

[@ivymuncher]

the awkward pauses kill me (in a good way [don't worry])

[@recourse1979]

Oh man you mentioned BBS' I miss them so much. What terminal program did you use? I was a telix fan.

[@DDBAA24]

made me think of AOL profiles and when normies discovered CSS.. I'm feeling old, the days of serving MP3's in a chatroom before Napster was a thing,,,, Winamp, booting people, good times.

[@ribbontoast]

oh my god guestbooks, i loved them my crowning achievement on old internet was hacking an installation of graymatter into a guestbook

[@mgp09]

Kids these days never get to do stuff like this mostly because everything is handed to them . Would love to nerd out to videos like these. - 90's kid 😄

[@GooogleGoglee]

Veronica we want a video of you doing this with a Commodore 64 😊

[@kristalsoft]

Loves from Istanbul ! ❤

[@philippklostermann7768]

A real perl monk would have laughed at my code, as it looked like C. I still sometimes use perl on the command line.

[@shelches]

Choosy Linux moms choose Gif! Sorry Veronica, I had to! Another awesome video -- thanks! 🙂

[@michaeljmeyer3]

Guestbooks... but what about ye olde web ring? :) Ultimate 90s SEO replacement (kinda) On the wayback machine, my old Angelfire site is memorialized by the classic: 'The page you are attempting to access has been removed because it violated Angelfire's Terms of Service.' - I created and hosted shell games, MUDs, mainly, and used Angelfire as a front end. I guess that pissed them off. :/ Sadly, I never did implement a guestbook on anything.

[@20000lbs_of_Cheese]

I strive to be reasonably effective

[@martin_emrich]

Being overcautious with a script-happy audience is surely a good idea... But as I still hold Perl dear, some comments: The first perl script is not dangerous at all. In the end, the CGI module executes the script, and sends the output down the line. So there is no "back channel", and thats also why you have to print the headers, too. Same if the script was Python, NodeJS or even bash. And, sarcastic comment, surely safer than importing everything from pip or npm that some random dude across the globe just uploaded. (And same applies for CPAN, of course). The "dangers" are all classic code injection attacks, just als possible today.

[@whosonedphone]

More early web stuff please.

[@pabloenriquegorga4222]

I there, still using tables, no problem with them if you know how to use it. 😀

[@jasperburchfield2028]

I would like to hear your thoughts about MySpace.

[@KarmaMan82]

Oh I see a Mac OS 9 - Screenshot! Is there a webserver, server based language and a database for this system like Apache, PHP and MySQL? My PowerBook G3 Pismo is waiting for this.

[@bluesquare23]

Seems like a great doorway to XSS.