Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Dole/Kemp '96 website still operational, still extremely old



Here is a site which should have vanished long ago but luckily has not, so we can explore the natural beauty that is a 1996 presidential campaign page.  The homepage appears below (seriously, full quality, as it appears on the page). 

According to this, Dole had 2 issues he cared about: K-12 education, and Technology and Internet.  

Reading through the updates yields the following description of the page:

On August 1, Dole for President unveiled the first individually 
customizable political web site. If you haven't been to the new site, 
here's a rundown:

When you first visit the site, you are given the option of setting up a 
custom Dole web page. (Requires a Netscape 2.0 compatible 
browser)
 
That is in fact the font that they used.  For all I know, that was the only font on the internet in 1996.  Sadly, without a Netscape 2.0 compatible browser, I was unable to customize my Dole web page (I wanted to focus on the issues most important to me: federal regulation of bourbon quality and photogenic cats getting the right to vote).  Having been stymied on that front, I went back to the homepage, when I noticed this image:

Pretty sure we've found the oldest gif on the internet.
After admiring that for several minutes, I moved on to the "Dole Kemp '96 Interactive" page, because all of the other links are broken.  Alas, the crossword, make-a-button, and send-a-postcard options were no longer active--you can, however, still obtain Bob Dole desktop wallpaper!  There are 9 options:
Is his dog named Leader?  I think his dog is named Leader.
Attempting to get a large version of any of these was an ultimately failed endeavor--here's what a Dole/Kemp wallpaper at full size looks like:

Maybe he just had one of those really old computers with a tiny screen?

After some further research, I found the issue:

Right now, we feature a variety of downloadable wallpaper images. Decorate your desktop with Dole for President graphics! The images below are shown at 50% of their actual size and are designed to tile seamlessly on your desktop.

Ummmm...no.  That can't be right.  Can it?

I guess the campaign strategy was to convince everyone that total control by our robot Dole overlords was inevitable.

So, yeah, that doesn't look great.  Also I can't locate any of my desktop icons now, and my computer is refusing to do anything for me until I change the desktop back.  Let's keep in mind the most important thing here, though.  It was time for the internet to change, and thanks to Bob Dole, IT HAS...


The future is here, and it's a tiled desktop wallpaper.



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