Over the holidays, I was rooting around in some old storage boxes and came across the May 1996 issue of MacUser, a now-defunct enthusiast magazine (whose target audience is, hopefully, obvious). Flipping through the pages of this magazine evoked an era of my life full of technological experimentation. At the time, it was understood that Windows was the platform of choice for hobbyists, but I always loved the Mac. I tinkered and created and explored on my Macs until I wore them out. By then, my dad was usually ready to upgrade and would graciously let me have his hand-me-downs.

Getting the latest issues of MacUser and its stodgier (and still extant) counterpart, Macworld, were highlights of the month. I liked MacUser a little better: It had a more personal style and a sense of community. I would pore over the pages, starting with the fun stuff like Q&A and Andy Ihnatko, and eventually perusing drier fare like scanner reviews because hey, it was there. At the age of 11, I was so excited to read that my letter to the editor had been published in the latest MacUser that I ran into my parents' bedroom to wake my mom up. She felt the news could have waited until morning. I honestly had no conception of why she was not beside herself with joy at my great success. (And FAME!)

This May ’96 issue is a fascinating picture of technology—and the technology press—in that moment. The Mac platform was undergoing a thorny transition from 680x0 processors to PowerPC. Mac users were parroting "Windows 95 = Macintosh ’89" to pretend we were not afraid of the unstoppable Microsoft juggernaut. And Gil Amelio had just taken the helm at Apple, succeeding Michael Spindler as CEO. It was a seamless transition: Spindler's handprints hadn't even disappeared from Apple's throat before Amelio started strangling the baby again.

Steve Jobs, chief of a boutique software company called NeXT, is not mentioned anywhere in the issue.

My favorite article in this edition, looking back 13 years later, is "Net Success." "MAKE THE NET WORK FOR YOU," blares the front cover, promising dozens of ways to get actual work done on the Internet. I wanted to see whether any of these resources were still around—in other words, how many of MacUser's tips still work in 2009? For each of the article's sections (except the last one about mailing list software, "E-Mail to the Max," because it was so terribly boring), I typed in each ofMacUser's supplied URLs to see what happened. I've outlined the results in convenient tabular format below.

1. Phone Home for Less

The MacUser piece is full of surprises, not least of which is the revelation that VoIP was already attracting interest in 1996. MacUser makes it the first order of business in this article. The three end-user internet telephony applications plugged in this section were all abandoned long ago, but one of the companies mentioned, VocalTec, is still around and doing quite well.

Quote that says it all: "Sound quality and voice delay vary, depending on the speed of your local connection, but even with a standard 14.4- or 28.8 kbps dial-up connection, what you get generally resembles CB-radio sound."

Site	Still Exists?	Notes
Cornell University's freeware CU-SeeMe	No	Server not found
VocalTec Internet Phone application	Kinda	Corporate "solutions" only
Electric Magic NetPhone application	No	URL goes to eMagic, a mortgage back-end software company

2. Stay Tuned to the News

This section is insane. First, MacUser invites readers to "spend $10 to $30 per month for newspapers such as the San Jose Mercury News." That's funny, sign of the times, etc. But then the next enticing option is The Hotline, an email newsletter available for $3,950 a year. Four grand a year! For an email newsletter! Sweet lord. But here, we do get the first URLs that still work in 2009, with the Mercury News and Yahoo.

Quote that says it all: "Many publications are still experimenting with pricing policies."

Site	Still Exists?	Notes
San Jose Mercury News	Yes	Now free of charge
The Hotline newsletter	No	404
Yahoo News	Yes
"The Daily News—Just the Links" news aggregator	No	404

3. Launch a Full-Scale Job Hunt

I expected to see names like Monster and HotJobs on this list, but apparently they weren't around yet.¹ Instead, the article directs readers to sites like JobHunt, which has a Stanford URL (http://rescomp.stanford.edu/jobs). The proliferation of .edu addresses throughout this article is a charming indication that in 1996, the Internet was still largely a product of the academic institutions where it blossomed into a global network. In fact, this article captures a Web that's on the cusp before dot-com became the standard.

Quote that says it all: "You don't always know who you're sending all this personal info to."

Site	Still Exists?	Notes
The Internet Mall job agency directory	No	Redirects to domain squatter page
JobHunt	No	404
CareerPath	Yes	Now a subsidiary of CareerBuilder
CareerMosaic	Kinda	Redirects to CareerBuilder

4. Get Your Facts Straight

This is the only section that approached a 100 percent score on the modern-day web. Only InfoSeek gets a yellow square, because it doesn't technically exist anymore. But the URL does redirect to a search engine, so it's pretty close to a win. Speaking of redirects, props to the SEC web team for maintaining theirs 13 years later. I expected a 404 for sure on that one.

An exercise for the reader: Do you notice which search engine is conspicuously missing from the 1996 landscape? Take your time!

Quote that says it all: "For more personalized attention, post to one of the many Usenet groups corresponding to your interest, ask a question, and wait for the tide of responses."

Site	Still Exists?	Notes
Yahoo	Yes	Duh
Lycos	Yes
InfoSeek	Kinda	Redirects to go.com, which no longer uses InfoSeek search technology (uses Yahoo instead)
Library of Congress	Yes	URL returns a 404 but gets you to the LoC site; I'll call it a win
SEC EDGAR Database of Corporate Information	Yes	Redirect
Quote.com	Yes	Financial info site

5. Spin Your Own Web Page

Remember when puns on the word "web" were in vogue?

Quote that says it all: "Usually your service provider will let you publish a home page at its site at no extra charge, unless you're using the home page to promote a business. … For example, America Online's lowest fee for business owners is $750 per month, which entitles you to 24-hour-a-day server access, an e-mail link, and your own logo or photo."

Site	Still Exists?	Notes
Jon Wiederspan's Macintosh WWW Resources page	No	Domain squatter
"Guides to Writing HTML Documents"	No	Server not found

6. Take Your Database Public

What a strange section. I have no idea why this would make the top 100 things someone would want to do on the internet, let alone the top ten. I remember hating when the Mac magazines would write articles about FileMaker Pro and whatnot. It seemed like the most boring thing in the world. Because it was.

Quote that says it all: "Once you've started publishing information on the Web, one of the first things you'll want to do is unleash your databases and share that product catalog or Star Trek episode guide with like-minded people."

Site	Still Exists?	Notes
XTML Excel to HTML plug-in	No	Redirects to AOL notice that personal homepages have been shut down, complete with enraged comments
WEB FM CGI software	No	404
ROFM AppleScript-based CGI software	Kinda	Developer's personal site still exists; software doesn't

7. Play Games

At this point, MacUser abandons the entire premise of the article, which is that you need to stop dicking around on the internet and get something done. They barely make it through six items—that "UNLEASH your databases!" crap was a squeaker—before they throw up their hands and include a slew of gaming links. I'm surprised they don't go whole-hog and make section #8 all about where to find free pornography. Publishers had standards back then.

The Outland URL is my favorite broken link of them all. It redirects to a page that not only glosses the history of Outland but also tells you what the Outland founders are up to now. Brilliant.

Quote that says it all: "If you've been killing yourself over games such as Marathon or Doom, you can take a shot at other players by logging onto such online gaming services as Sim-Net for Macintosh!"

Runner-up quote that says even more of it all: "Seemingly 'free' games can be expensive when you add up your connection time. It's also harder to cheat."

Site	Still Exists?	Notes
Sim-Net for Macintosh! gaming network	No	Domain squatter
GameNet gaming network	No	404; domain now hosts lame Flash games
Outland gaming network	No	URL helpfully redirects to "History of Outland" page
The MUD Resource Collection	No	404
Universal Access Blackjack Server	No	404, essentially
Games Domain	Kinda	Redirects to Yahoo Games UK
Happy Puppy Games You Play on the WWW	No	Defunct
The Action Games Menu	No	404

8. Seek Technical Help

I expected all of these URLs to work, but only one did. Really, Microsoft, you can't maintain a redirect for "http://www.microsoft.com/kb"? That's just lazy.

Quote that says it all: "Many companies are still struggling … to iron out the bugs in their tech-support Web pages."

Site	Still Exists?	Notes
Apple Tech Info Library	No	Server not found
Apple product information	No	404
Microsoft Knowledge Base	No	404
Microsoft support	Yes	Redirect

9. Take a Vacation

It's clear that MacUser shelled out a lot of cash for an old-timey photo library before publishing this piece, as it's absolutely riddled with stock photography of scenes from the 1940s/50s era. They are crammed into every nook and cranny of the page, even when the page layout doesn't accommodate them. I guess the original notion was that they're writing about the Internet, so all the pictures of people from the olden days would look ironic. Thirteen years later, it just looks stupid. The photo that accompanies the travel section is definitely the weirdest:

Photography aside, this eclectic grab-bag of travel links would be disappointing even if all the links worked. The Paris Beer Guide? "Mark Kantrowitz's Travel Periodicals page"? By the way, Kantrowitz's page has the most convoluted URL in an article full of ridiculously bad URLs. It's too long to reproduce here without breaking my page layout, so you'll have to click on the link below to witness its glory.

Quote that says it all: "Until there's more widespread use of the secure transmission features incorporated into new browsers such as Netscape Navigator 2.0, you may be forced to settle the fees via fax or phone."

Site	Still Exists?	Notes
Internet Solutions' rec.travel Library	No	Server not found
The Hotel Anywhere! On-Line Travel Magazines Search Page	No	404
Mark Kantrowitz's Travel Periodicals page	No	404, essentially
The Paris Beer Guide	No	A fine guide to beer in New York, though
Hotel Reservation Center	No	404
Hawaii visitors bureau	Yes	Tourist information
Internet Travel Mall	No	Server not found
Joe Witherspoon's Industrial Strength Travel	No	Joe's ISP apparently not as industrial-strength as his travel page
GNN Whole Internet Catalog Travel Page	No	Server not found

Conclusions

The final tally: Ten links worked, five kinda worked, and a resounding 28 links didn't work at all. Even that exaggerates the success rate. Take out the search engine winners, and only four links worked. I was hoping for a better result, but this isn't a huge surprise. Even in 1996, it was frustratingly clear that the Web's most interesting resources were built on shifting sands—fly-by-night pages furtively posted on university servers, corporate websites set up on a lark by a guy in the accounting department who taught himself HTML, etc.

Still, it was fun to go through this quaint old article. The Web hasn't ceased to amaze—in fact, it seems to have more untapped potential today than it did 13 years ago—but the ’96 vintage awe has the thrill of newness about it. We'll never get that back.