bootersMar 4, 2024

I spent the last week scraping through a terabyte of GeoCities archives and collecting ALL THE #88x31 buttons! In the end, I gathered 29257 unique buttons (75k with duplicates). They are available at https://hellnet.work/8831/

Check them out!

I also have the dataset (~160MB), stats and a bit about the scraping process here: https://hellnet.work/8831/stats.html

#indieweb #smallweb #geocities #neocities

THE 88×31 ARCHIVE

Show threadVincent Degove

@booters congrats! I have questions. 88x31, like in 88 px × 31 px? Why this peculiar dimension, where whey they displayed in the page, was there a UI limitation of Geocities?

Edit: answering my own question https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-odd-size-of-88x31-become-a-standard-for-a-website-button

How did the odd size of 88x31 become a standard for a website "button"?

Answer (1 of 4): I didn't actually know the answer to this, so I did a little bit of digging. As with any historical trend it's difficult to pinpoint exactly where something like this starts, but I've found something that seems like a reasonable explanation for how it spread. So searching by dat...

Quora
Mar 5, 2024 at 7:03amWeb
Show threadDan PriceMar 5, 2024
@vincevlo @booters I love how many de facto standards are born out of "someone at [largest company in this sector] decided it was the best option and everyone else followed suit"
Show threadbootersMar 5, 2024
@vincevlo It seems like the most upvoted answer is wrong or at least not completely true. 88x31 buttons were popularised by GeoCities starting 1996 but it seems like Netscape was the first to use these particular dimensions for their buttons. This is also in agreement with the oldest button in my own collection. It was last modified on 16th October 1995 and might be the earliest "known" 88x31 button