mccAug 1, 2024
Oh my gosh I found myself on an Angelfire page and I discovered that this is currently the Angelfire 404 page https://www.angelfire.lycos.com/index.shtml
Show threadjmelesky

@mcc I worked at Tripod (owned by Lycos) when Lycos also acquired Angelfire. It turned out that the entire site (login, html editor, uploader, everything) was run on a single CGI that was written in C.

The CGI binary was named a.out, which I was told stood for “angelfire.out”.

This is unrelated to your 404 page, but I don’t get many chances to tell this story.

Aug 1, 2024 at 3:04amWeb
Show threadFrank Bennett 🇯🇵Aug 1, 2024
@jmelesky @mcc (Reminds me of a student who, when confronted over plagiarism, said, "Yes, the words are the same, but they said exactly what I wanted to say.")
Show threadRaven667Aug 1, 2024

@jmelesky you didn't say but maybe you know and were just being coy, but `a.out` was the default filename for output from the C compiler if you didn't tell it a filename you wanted, which is kinda funny.

I'm kind of interested in how that program worked, because it's not that unusual today to have a monolithic process with url routing to modular components (like Django) but not usually in C, although I suppose there is Go now, so this design seems old and weird but actually has come back

Show threadjmeleskyAug 1, 2024

@raven667 Oh, I’m aware, never fear :)

My recollection is that “modular components” may be incredibly generous for the code in question. It its defense, I think the company had, prior to acquisition, consisted of fewer than five people, with maybe as little as one or two touching the code.

Show threadJeremy ListAug 1, 2024
@raven667 @jmelesky when I was in university my ~/public/cgi-bin contained a fair bit of stuff written in vala
Show threadveeteeAug 1, 2024
@jmelesky that's amazing 😂
@mcc
Show threadSean Pang-DykemanAug 1, 2024
@jmelesky @mcc Pretty shockingly to me, the RollerCoaster Tycoon fan site I made on Angelfire when I was 12, 25 years ago, is still online and at least slightly functional
Show threadDiego C.FradesAug 1, 2024
@jmelesky @mcc a.out was the default binary name when building c code, iirc
Show threadRoy GreenhiltAug 1, 2024

@jmelesky @mcc I consulted for a few months for Lycos, when they were absolutely in the downward spiral. I had the fun of standing next to the physical servers that were keeping the walking corpse of those sites alive.

The infighting, pettiness, and just plain ridiculousness of the Ybrant acquisition still gives me good beer-stories to this day.

Show threadjmeleskyAug 1, 2024
@roygreenhilt @mcc Well after my time, thankfully, but understandable considering the number of acquisitions and near-acquisitions it had gone through by that point.
Show threadmccAug 1, 2024
@roygreenhilt @jmelesky :O
Show thread⸸Punished Venom Nova⸸Aug 2, 2024
@jmelesky @mcc Fun fax, Angelfire hasn't changed all that much since the early 2000s, and is a relic of the era of Geocities that hasn't shut itself down. You can actually make a website there, and use all the old school templates. (I did this for a while until I decided it would be cooler to build my own website)
Show threadArtmannAug 3, 2024

@jmelesky @mcc @siracusa

I wrote a BBS / Intranet in C, using CGI interface to the webserver in mid 90’s. Code still available on github, see www.artmann.se/freeware 😉