The 1983 Phoebe Cates film Private School may lack technical merit, but this clip does it some major justice. The video, compiled by TNUC, features select scenes from the movie coupled with a recent Le Matos remix of a track sung by Phoebe Cates for the film. It’s yuppie-glam at its best.

80’s Bonus: Another remix video by TNUC, this time for the 1984 aerobics film Heavenly Bodies. Enjoy!

Take it from us: If you can’t pronounce “JNCO,” you’re hopelessly out of touch…JNCOs are so wide they swing like a double-barreled hoop skirt and drag along the pavement, collecting chewed gum and other sidewalk scum. – Fortune Magazine, April 13, 1998

Insanely wide and straight legs - perfect for the 3 S's: sagging, shoplifting, and skating {peterahall.net}

The coolest kids in the late 90’s wore JNCOs (Judge None, Choose One). In fact, the wide-legged jean market increased in revenue by 30% in 1997. Not only did these huge jeans, often measuring 30+ inches in the leg openings, make the wearer seem larger (and tougher), but the jeans could easily be sagged. Most pairs of JNCOs were sold at JCPenney, but lucky people in Los Angeles could head over to a retail store on Melrose. The pants were available online starting in late 1996. In fact, the archived version of the 1996 catalog contains some excellent descriptions. However, who actually bought:

• Any of the ‘natural’ colored pants (white or cream in color)?
• The Builder Short-All??
• The Wide Cord?

Compare these to today’s slim-fit pants. Ten years ago, slim jeans would have garnered negative comments. Today, however, JNCOs would just seem goofy. My how the tables have turned. A look at the archived version of the JNCO website shows that the company sponsored the Vans Warped Tour and had an ad in Seventeen. Unfortunately for poser-types and Korn fans, JNCO seems to have gone out of business. Their website doesn’t exist, but the domain is registered by parent company Revatex through 2013. Here’s to a comeback…

The JNCO website in 1998 {web.archive.org}

Classic 1948 romance {http://www.lillystrends.com}

Today such a gift may not be well-received, seeing as cigarettes are a known health hazard.

What a great lineup of characters. 30 years later, the same types of characters are still around – even older women with oversized headphones. You just have to look around a bit harder.

Expirattion date: 1998. The film was too dry.

Although Polaroid film was recently discontinued, the prices of film on eBay have actually decreased since last year at this time, before the film was discontinued. Such an effect probably results from reduced hype and slightly less interest in the medium. One year ago, the typical cost of Polaroid film that expired in the past couple of years was $1.50 a shot, but scrupulous buyers could find film at $1.25/image. Currently, the price stands around $1.15 a picture, but patient buyers can find film at $0.80/shot. New film (expiring in 2009) still commands at least a 30% premium over older (exp 2004-2007) film. Older film is slightly more risky to use; the colors may be dull, or the film pack may not have been stored in ideal conditions (ie. refrigerated). Still, any age of film will sell, and the oldest of film from 1989 sells for as much as film that expired in 2007. It’s all about the thrill of risk-taking.

A chart of price based on expiration date of Spectra film using eBay sales data

If only all sites looked this good... {4president.us}

There’s a slight chance that rapper Nelly had the Internet in mind when he wrote the song “#1″ earlier in the decade:

What does it take to be number one
Two is not a winner and three nobody remembers, tell me
What does it take to be number one, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh

Was he referring to Web 1.0 (old content-rich HTML sites) as the best, and Web 2.0 (the social web) as lacking? And, to top it all off, did Nelly just say that no one will remember “Web 3.0” (the semantic web)? Probably not, but such a thought reminds us that Web 1.0 was a necessary building block in the grand scheme of the Web.

So, what makes an old site old and how these sites can be re-discovered?: (Adapted from sister-site 404PageFound)

1. A site created between 1994-2001 is ideal (pre-dot-com bubble burst)
2. Site last modified pre-2005, assuming it has a creation date from the mid-1990’s
3. Plain text or an archive of e-mail/newsgroup postings (very old)
4. Contains only HTML, CGI, Perl, or early Java (no PHP or CSS elements)
5. Page source code contains old date for confirmation, or old publishing software/browser citation
6. Utilizes old HTML methods and tags: animation, font-size, tables, frames
7. Clearly optimized for limited bandwidth (low-resolution graphics, simple layout)
8. Site received an Internet award in its prime (”Site of the Day”, etc.)
9. No social media whatsoever (apart from guestbook or bookmark links)
10. Content is written by the author for an audience – no user generated content
11. Can be GeoCities/Angelfire/Tripod/etc.

What does not necessarily make a site Web 1.0:

1. Simplicity
2. Lack of images
3. Post-2004 sites meant to look dated
4. Frames
5. Sites with general poor design

Best Places to Look For Old Websites:

• Used books from 1995-1997
• Old bookmark lists
• Old directory listings
• Web award site archives
• Links from old pages
• Web search for old awards, servers, years, software
• Exploration of moderately old sites for even older internal links

Bonus: Don’t forget to check out the 1996 Presidential Campaign Web Sites!

Maybe 2004, but not 1964...

Color TV hardly existed 10 years later, let alone a paper-thin screen. First things first, seriously.

$48k in 1954 = $380k in 2008

Who knows how many of these sold in 1954. The cost benefit of saving 2048 words on a cumbersome computer vs. a typist spending 50 minutes (2048 words @ 40WPM) to re-type a document is minimal. Technology would have brought a more efficient computer in a matter of years, anyway.

The early electric wheelchair

Nice steering wheel, grandpa. What a heavy looking device.

Greece:

During its occupation by Nazi Germany in 1941-1944, the rate of inflation hit 8.55 x 10^9 percent per month (prices doubled every 28 hours). As a result, the 100 Milliard, or 100 Billion Drachmai note was issued in November 1944. Although this note only displays 2 zeroes, it still contained a hefty denomination.

Yugoslavia:

Yugoslavia’s rate of inflation hit 5 x 10^15 percent inflation between 1 October 1993 and 24 January 1994 (prices doubled every 16 hours). The rate maxed out at 323 million percent per month. A 500 Billion Dinar note was issued in December 1993, and was worth roughly $6 US at the start of the day. By evening, it was only worth an equivalent $3 US.

Zimbabwe:

In 2008, a 100 billion dollar bank note was issued in July. In January 2009, however, a 100 Trillion Dollar note was released, making it the the bank note with the most zeroes (14). Only two weeks later the government dropped 12 zeroes from the curency, making the note worth Z$100. Tricky.

Hungary (29 zeroes!):

The most severe known incident of inflation was in Hungary after the end of World War II, peaking at 4.19 × 10¹⁶ percent per month (prices doubled every 15 hours). In order to keep up with the inflation rate, the government issued the 100 Million B-Pengo note in 1946. (A larger denomination note was created but never issued). A B-Pengo is equal to one billion pengo, but in European terms a billion is equal to one-thousand milliard, or one trillion in American terms. Therefore, the 100 Million B-Pengo is essentially equal to 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (100 quintillion) Pengo. It was worth about U.S. $0.20 in 1946. Eventually, 29 zeroes were dropped when the Forint was adopted in mid-1946.