The Invisible Top Dot
Little UFO
MACJR'S
Space Worker - left
Mini-Verse²
Space Worker - right
Galaxy 3

A MACJR Sample

More to come!

macjr@gte.__

About My First Web Site

Update Note:

I changed the wallpaper image, above, to an earlier version of Galaxy 3, after discovering that the 1997 version I had posted was not the one I had used in my first web page. The 1997 version came later, after I discovered the flaws, still in the 1995 version that is shown above. I also adjusted the location of the lower text, to better match what the original page probably looked like, minus the web browser’s menus and scroll bar.

I still had a lot to learn about making digital art, and web pages, back in 1997. Also, those flaws in the image were not noticeable on the PC monitor I was using back then. Modern screens tend to show graphics at much higher bright and contrast levels than my old monitor was set to. I did adjust the bright levels of the image above, to darken it, so that it better matches what it used to look like, on my old PC monitor, and most monitors back then in the PC Bronze Age.

After looking at the original raw HTML for that first web page, I was reminded that I had created that page with Microsoft FrontPad 2.0, which was a lite version of FrontPage (both of which have been discontinued). Back then, FrontPad, if I remember right, was part of Internet Explorer 3.02. I cannot be sure though, it was a long time ago. I do know that FrontPad 2.0 is in the HTML metadata section of that first page though.

I remember being so frustrated at how messy FrontPad wrote HTML. In fact, I thought FrontPad wrote HTML so sloppy that I ended up teaching myself how to write raw HTML, and soon after stopped using FrontPad, and all programs like it, and switch to writing web pages exclusively in raw HTML thereafter. Still, FrontPad does gets credit for helping me make my first web pages.

Michael A. Crane, Jr.
Artist/Webmaster/Writer

Note:

The e-mail address, above, was discontinued many years ago, thus I lopped off the last part. That was my first e-mail address, that had ended with .net.

The large galaxy image above, titled Galaxy 3, is a remastered, Full-Size, replica of my first web page. I adjusted the bright and contrast levels of the image to make it look better on modern screens, and better approximate how it used to look on old CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitors that we used back in the late 1990s. Also, the font sizes and text positions are approximations. How modern web browsers display the original HTML for that first page may not be exactly the same as how it was displayed back in my 1997 web browsers (early versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer).

In addition, the original, ancient, HTML was replaced with modern HTML5 and CSS3, but I did strive to make this reproduction of my first web page look the same as the original page looked. However, the original page used to take up the full screen of an average monitor, back then, not just one section of a modern page. Modern screen resolutions are vastly higher than they were back in 1997, thus, reproductions of my old pages all look rather small on modern screens, or greatly distorted if not contained to a small area of a modern page.

The original version of the 640x480 image above, with the large galaxy and stars, was first created on , which is a little more than a year before I first logged on to the Internet as MACJR. The history of that galaxy and stars, though, goes back even farther. The first small version of that galaxy was made on , which is about two years after I bought my first computer. That galaxy and stars was just one small section of a larger space scene I was working on at the time, titled, Hyperspace.

As for the MACJR’S Mini-Verse² site name, it turns out that I came up with that title for my website on, or before, . Unfortunately, I did not save every change that I made to my sites back then. There are gaps in my archives of site backups, thus, the backup is the first, saved, appearance of MACJR’S Mini-Verse².

Interestingly, the saved HTML file, with the date, loads a page that says, Last Updated: . I can think of a few reasons for this date discrepancy. One, I forgot to update the Last Updated notice on July 08. Two, the original file’s date was change along the way (that can happen – burning disks and restoring files to a Windows formatted hard drive is often a half-hazard event). And three, I may have accidentally made a no-change save to the wrong file, overwriting the archived date by mistake. What I call, an Oops! event.

Whatever the original site name-change date may have been, the fact is that on , my first web site was titled, MACJR’S Mini-Verse².

Archive Dates and Site Titles:

‐ A MACJR Sample
‐ MACJR’S Computer Art
‐ MACJR’S Home Page
‐ MACJR’S Home Page
‐ MACJR’S Home Page
‐ MACJR’S Mini-Verse²

Michael A. Crane, Jr.
Artist/Webmaster/Writer