Mosaic Communications Corporation (later Netscape Communications) was
founded 30 years ago. They were brash enough to thumb their noses at
Microsoft. And if you remember that time, Microsoft was indeed slow to
appreciate the importance of the then-up-and-coming Internet. Bill
Gates famously put out a book called “The Way Ahead”, talking about
how he saw the future of computing evolving, and he didn’t even
mention the Internet, except in a hastily-added postscript.

But once the changes in the marketplace became evident, the
supercarrier did manage to turn itself around. And Microsoft fought
back, by both fair means and foul, to keep Windows not only the
dominant desktop platform, but the dominant platform for consuming
Internet content.

One important thing Netscape did before going completely defunct was
to open-source the browser. That lives on today (after a fashion) as
the SeaMonkey browser, but a trimmed-down adaptation of the code,
jettisoning all the non-browser-related functionality, found new life
as Firefox.

<https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/how-netscape-lives-on-30-years-of-shaping-the-web-open-source-and-business/>

On 11/04/2024 2:35 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> but a trimmed-down adaptation of the c
I remember I started using Netscape when I have a acoustical modem with
Very limited capacity. The one particular update, I remember I went to
my son-in-laws house and down loaded it through his ISP which came into
his house for his LAN. His system which was many times fasted the my modem.

I have stayed with Netscape and then Firefox/Thunderbird and I believe
it is the best program out there for browsing the internet, handling
your email, and browsing the newsgroups. I was pleased when they added
the Scheduling/Calendar to Thunderbird. We use it exclusively to
maintain our home schedule to avoid conflicts. I believe the
Thunderbird Scheduling/Calendar is under appreciated.

On 11/4/24 03:10 PM, knuttle wrote:
> On 11/04/2024 2:35 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>   but a trimmed-down adaptation of the c
> I remember I started using Netscape when I have a acoustical modem with Very limited capacity.   The
> one particular update, I remember I went to my son-in-laws house and down loaded it through his ISP
> which came into his house for his LAN. His system which was many times fasted the my modem.
>
> I have stayed with Netscape and then Firefox/Thunderbird and I believe it is the best program out
> there for browsing the internet, handling your email, and browsing the newsgroups.  I was pleased
> when they added the Scheduling/Calendar to Thunderbird.  We use it exclusively to maintain our home
> schedule to avoid conflicts.  I believe the Thunderbird Scheduling/Calendar is under appreciated.
I still have a CD of Netscape (7.0 I think).

--
Linux Mint 22, Cinnamon 6.2.9, Kernel 6.8.0-48-generic
Thunderbird 128.4.0esr, Mozilla Firefox 132.0
Alan K.

On 11/4/2024 2:10 PM, knuttle wrote:
> On 11/04/2024 2:35 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>   but a trimmed-down adaptation of the c
> I remember I started using Netscape when I have a acoustical modem with
> Very limited capacity.   The one particular update, I remember I went to
> my son-in-laws house and down loaded it through his ISP which came into
> his house for his LAN. His system which was many times fasted the my modem.
>
> I have stayed with Netscape and then Firefox/Thunderbird and I believe
> it is the best program out there for browsing the internet, handling
> your email, and browsing the newsgroups.  I was pleased when they added
> the Scheduling/Calendar to Thunderbird.  We use it exclusively to
> maintain our home schedule to avoid conflicts.  I believe the
> Thunderbird Scheduling/Calendar is under appreciated.

One of the things I really like about Firefox is the "Firefox Account".
The ability to get it all set up on a different computer by just syncing
into the account has made life easy many times. With the old people I
have to maintain systems on, I set them all up on one.

--
I Stand With Israel!

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 15:46:04 -0500, Alan K. wrote:

> I still have a CD of Netscape (7.0 I think).

This <https://archive.org/details/nscp7_0>, by any chance?

archive.org also has other versions available
<https://archive.org/search?query=netscape+cd>.

On 11/4/24 05:17 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 15:46:04 -0500, Alan K. wrote:
>
>> I still have a CD of Netscape (7.0 I think).
>
> This <https://archive.org/details/nscp7_0>, by any chance?
>
> archive.org also has other versions available
> <https://archive.org/search?query=netscape+cd>.
S**t. I threw the dang thing away. That ticks me off. I was going to put it on the scanner.

I was cleaning about 3 months ago and tossed some really useless stuff away, like cd's of clipart,
but I should have kept that for sentimental reasons. Cardboard sleeve with the blue/green Netscape
logo.

--
Linux Mint 22, Cinnamon 6.2.9, Kernel 6.8.0-48-generic
Thunderbird 128.4.1esr, Mozilla Firefox 132.0.1
Alan K.

I still use SeaMonkey that was based on Netscape's design (Communicator)!

In alt.comp.software.firefox Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> Mosaic Communications Corporation (later Netscape Communications) was
> founded 30 years ago. They were brash enough to thumb their noses at
> Microsoft. And if you remember that time, Microsoft was indeed slow to
> appreciate the importance of the then-up-and-coming Internet. Bill
> Gates famously put out a book called ???The Way Ahead???, talking about
> how he saw the future of computing evolving, and he didn???t even
> mention the Internet, except in a hastily-added postscript.

> But once the changes in the marketplace became evident, the
> supercarrier did manage to turn itself around. And Microsoft fought
> back, by both fair means and foul, to keep Windows not only the
> dominant desktop platform, but the dominant platform for consuming
> Internet content.

> One important thing Netscape did before going completely defunct was
> to open-source the browser. That lives on today (after a fashion) as
> the SeaMonkey browser, but a trimmed-down adaptation of the code,
> jettisoning all the non-browser-related functionality, found new life
> as Firefox.

> <https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/how-netscape-lives-on-30-years-of-shaping-the-web-open-source-and-business/>

--
"Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death." --Proverbs 11:4. Pls vote in https://antsqualityforagedlinks.blogspot.com/2024/10/its-time-to-vote-again.html. USA's election day eve with lots of poops & pees!
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

On 04.11.24 15:10, knuttle wrote:
> On 11/04/2024 2:35 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> but a trimmed-down adaptation of the c
> I remember I started using Netscape when I have a acoustical modem with
> Very limited capacity. The one particular update, I remember I went to
> my son-in-laws house and down loaded it through his ISP which came into
> his house for his LAN. His system which was many times fasted the my modem.
>
> I have stayed with Netscape and then Firefox/Thunderbird and I believe
> it is the best program out there for browsing the internet, handling
> your email, and browsing the newsgroups. I was pleased when they added
> the Scheduling/Calendar to Thunderbird. We use it exclusively to
> maintain our home schedule to avoid conflicts. I believe the
> Thunderbird Scheduling/Calendar is under appreciated.

Very much the same here and I certainly share your appreciation of the
offsprings of the Netscape era.

--
"De gustibus non est disputandum."

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 18:43:19 -0500, Alan K. wrote:

> I was cleaning about 3 months ago and tossed some really useless stuff
> away, like cd's of clipart, but I should have kept that for sentimental
> reasons. Cardboard sleeve with the blue/green Netscape logo.

Save a disc image, and maybe scan the artwork, before the original
physical media becomes unreadable. Hard disk space is plentiful, even if
physical room in your house is not. ;)

"Alan K." <alan@invalid.com> Wrote in message:

> I still have a CD of Netscape (7.0 I think).

I have a stack of old CDs for getting online, many of them given
away by shops (Tesco, Comet, WH Smith) or ISPs (AOL, Demon,
Compuserve). I collected and kept them to hang on the raspberry
canes to keep the birds off. One of them is from virgin.net dated
1996, which was probably the one I used to set up the first
Windows 95 machine for the family, and which included Netscape 2
or 3. I used communicator until 4.7 iirc before moving to the
Seamonkey Milestone builds.
--
Remove numerics from my email address.

Ant wrote on 5/11/24 10:47 am:
> I still use SeaMonkey that was based on Netscape's design (Communicator)!
>
>
> In alt.comp.software.firefox Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>> Mosaic Communications Corporation (later Netscape Communications) was
>> founded 30 years ago. They were brash enough to thumb their noses at
>> Microsoft. And if you remember that time, Microsoft was indeed slow to
>> appreciate the importance of the then-up-and-coming Internet. Bill
>> Gates famously put out a book called ???The Way Ahead???, talking about
>> how he saw the future of computing evolving, and he didn???t even
>> mention the Internet, except in a hastily-added postscript.
>
>> But once the changes in the marketplace became evident, the
>> supercarrier did manage to turn itself around. And Microsoft fought
>> back, by both fair means and foul, to keep Windows not only the
>> dominant desktop platform, but the dominant platform for consuming
>> Internet content.
>
>> One important thing Netscape did before going completely defunct was
>> to open-source the browser. That lives on today (after a fashion) as
>> the SeaMonkey browser, but a trimmed-down adaptation of the code,
>> jettisoning all the non-browser-related functionality, found new life
>> as Firefox.
>
>> <https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/how-netscape-lives-on-30-years-of-shaping-the-web-open-source-and-business/>
>
I don't quite make 30 years .... but in late 1996, I opened an account
with a, then, local ISP and got two 5.25inch discs, one containing the
Windows dialer program and the other contained Netscape Browser V0.9.
(V0.9 .... so was that a "pre-release Release"?? What do 'we' call them
now-a-days?? Alphas?? Betas?? Release Candidates??)

I think I still have those two floppies somewhere!!
--
Daniel

On 5/11/2024 3:35 am, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> Mosaic Communications Corporation (later Netscape Communications) was
> founded 30 years ago. They were brash enough to thumb their noses at
> Microsoft. And if you remember that time, Microsoft was indeed slow to
> appreciate the importance of the then-up-and-coming Internet. Bill
> Gates famously put out a book called “The Way Ahead”, talking about
> how he saw the future of computing evolving, and he didn’t even
> mention the Internet, except in a hastily-added postscript.

I have been using Netscape then Mozilla as browsers all these years.

On 11/4/2024 2:35 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> One important thing Netscape did before going completely defunct was
> to open-source the browser. That lives on today (after a fashion) as
> the SeaMonkey browser, but a trimmed-down adaptation of the code,
> jettisoning all the non-browser-related functionality, found new life
> as Firefox.

For anyone who's interested, there's a good documentary about
the final days of Netscape. It's called Code Rush, available at both
youtube and archive.org.

This link should work to download it:

https://ia801809.us.archive.org/6/items/code-rush-2000/Code%20Rush%20%282000%29-Decombed.mp4

Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> wrote:
> On 11/4/2024 2:35 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> One important thing Netscape did before going completely defunct was
>> to open-source the browser. That lives on today (after a fashion) as
>> the SeaMonkey browser, but a trimmed-down adaptation of the code,
>> jettisoning all the non-browser-related functionality, found new life
>> as Firefox.
>
> For anyone who's interested, there's a good documentary about
> the final days of Netscape. It's called Code Rush, available at both
> youtube and archive.org.
>
> This link should work to download it:
>
> https://ia801809.us.archive.org/6/items/code-rush-2000/Code%20Rush%20%282000%29-Decombed.mp4
>

Oooh, thank you for linking that!

On 11/5/24 11:37 AM, Francis Strelok wrote:
> Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> wrote:
>> On 11/4/2024 2:35 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> One important thing Netscape did before going completely defunct was
>>> to open-source the browser. That lives on today (after a fashion) as
>>> the SeaMonkey browser, but a trimmed-down adaptation of the code,
>>> jettisoning all the non-browser-related functionality, found new life
>>> as Firefox.
>>
>> For anyone who's interested, there's a good documentary about
>> the final days of Netscape. It's called Code Rush, available at both
>> youtube and archive.org.
>>
>> This link should work to download it:
>>
>> https://ia801809.us.archive.org/6/items/code-rush-2000/Code%20Rush%20%282000%29-Decombed.mp4
>>
>
> Oooh, thank you for linking that!
>
Here is youtube of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q7FTjhvZ7Y
I think, at least the first 20 seconds is identical

--
Linux Mint 22, Cinnamon 6.2.9, Kernel 6.8.0-48-generic
Thunderbird 128.4.1esr, Mozilla Firefox 132.0.1
Alan K.

On 11/5/2024 11:47 AM, Alan K. wrote:

>>> https://ia801809.us.archive.org/6/items/code-rush-2000/Code%20Rush%20%282000%29-Decombed.mp4
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Oooh, thank you for linking that!
>>
> Here is youtube of it.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q7FTjhvZ7Y
> I think, at least the first 20 seconds is identical
>

193 MB. 56 minutes. I think I originally saw it on PBS.
The archive.org download is slow, and there are multiple
youtube downloads. I didn't post those because sometimes
such links are junk and because some people may not know
how to actually get the file that way.

On 11/4/24 14:35, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> One important thing Netscape did before going completely defunct was
> to open-source the browser.

THAT was a class act! I did something vaguely similar when I took out a
provisional patent and then let it lapse for the express purpose of thus
hard-wiring the idea into public domain to prevent anyone from ever
being able to take out a patent on the same idea.

BTW I'm looking for higher resolution/quality copies of the original
Netscape 'navigator' (icon there wree several versions, I want them all).

On Tue, 5 Nov 2024 14:32:21 -0500, bad sector wrote:

> On 11/4/24 14:35, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> One important thing Netscape did before going completely defunct was to
>> open-source the browser.
>
> THAT was a class act! I did something vaguely similar when I took out a
> provisional patent and then let it lapse for the express purpose of thus
> hard-wiring the idea into public domain to prevent anyone from ever
> being able to take out a patent on the same idea.

Patents in the public interest ... now THAT I can applaud!

But then, simply publishing the idea would, in theory, count as “prior
art”, wouldn’t it? Though in practice it is very hard to get patents
invalidated anyway, at least in the US system (also *cough* East Texas
*cough*).

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 19:35:38 -0000 (UTC), I wrote:

> Bill Gates famously put out a book called “The Way Ahead” ...

Ahem, actually “The Road Ahead”.

Obviously not worth reading, anyway. ;)

In comp.misc Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Nov 2024 14:32:21 -0500, bad sector wrote:
>
>> On 11/4/24 14:35, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> One important thing Netscape did before going completely defunct
>>> was to open-source the browser.
>>
>> THAT was a class act! I did something vaguely similar when I took
>> out a provisional patent and then let it lapse for the express
>> purpose of thus hard-wiring the idea into public domain to prevent
>> anyone from ever being able to take out a patent on the same idea.
>
> Patents in the public interest ... now THAT I can applaud!

Officially, that is (at least in the US) the official, Constitution
derived, reason for the patent system in the first place. In exchange
for a limited length monopoly, the public gets disclosure of the
invention and the ability to use it once the limited length monopoly
runs out.

Of course, a 20 year monopoly lets bad actors be bad for 20 years....

> But then, simply publishing the idea would, in theory, count as
> “prior art”, wouldn’t it? Though in practice it is very hard to get
> patents invalidated anyway, at least in the US system (also *cough*
> East Texas *cough*).

Yes, it does not matter the manner of publication, just the fact that
it was published.

But, bad sector's method has the added benefit of the fact that the one
"database" that is most easily accessible to the examiner's working in
the patent office is the actual database of prior patents. So
inserting his idea into the existing patent database itself meant the
document had the best chance that it would be found, and possibly used,
to block someone else.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

> On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 19:35:38 -0000 (UTC), I wrote:
>
>> Bill Gates famously put out a book called “The Way Ahead” ...
>
> Ahem, actually “The Road Ahead”.
>
> Obviously not worth reading, anyway. ;)

Why not? :)

On 11/4/24 1:45 PM, sticks wrote:
> On 11/4/2024 2:10 PM, knuttle wrote:
>> On 11/04/2024 2:35 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>>   but a trimmed-down adaptation of the c
>> I remember I started using Netscape when I have a acoustical modem with
>> Very limited capacity.   The one particular update, I remember I went to
>> my son-in-laws house and down loaded it through his ISP which came into
>> his house for his LAN. His system which was many times fasted the my modem.
>>
>> I have stayed with Netscape and then Firefox/Thunderbird and I believe
>> it is the best program out there for browsing the internet, handling
>> your email, and browsing the newsgroups.  I was pleased when they added
>> the Scheduling/Calendar to Thunderbird.  We use it exclusively to
>> maintain our home schedule to avoid conflicts.  I believe the
>> Thunderbird Scheduling/Calendar is under appreciated.
>
> One of the things I really like about Firefox is the "Firefox Account".
> The ability to get it all set up on a different computer by just syncing
> into the account has made life easy many times. With the old people I
> have to maintain systems on, I set them all up on one.

Heh. I am one of those old people and I started using Netscape .9 for
linux. I even used Mosaic a few times!

--
Cheers, Bev
"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people
maintaining a free civil government."
-- letter from Thomas Jefferson to Baron vonHumboldt, 1813

On 11/5/2024 8:19 PM, The Real Bev wrote:
>>
>> One of the things I really like about Firefox is the "Firefox Account".
>> The ability to get it all set up on a different computer by just syncing
>> into the account has made life easy many times.  With the old people I
>> have to maintain systems on, I set them all up on one.
>
> Heh.  I am one of those old people and I started using Netscape .9 for
> linux.  I even used Mosaic a few times!

I meant no disrespect, and should have said older than me (I ain't no
spring chicken). Couple days ago, my mom got silly and called the
number on an email from someone claiming to be from paypal saying they
were charging her account $500. My younger nephew was there at the
time. She figured out during the call it was a scam and hung up.
Delete the email and move on. No harm.

For some reason the nephew decides she needs to reinstall windows cause
she got phished. Not sure exactly what procedure he used, but he
effectively did a full install and erased everything she had on her
system. All pictures, documents, contacts...every damn thing. He never
asked if she needed anything saved or backed up. Then, he got stuck in
an endless loop which would not allow it to finish the installation. He
texts me for help, and I let him sweat it out. When he failed to figure
out how to move forward I told him to just leave it and I would take
care of it.

I was able to get it done and get everything installed again, and
Firefox was the only thing that was back as it should be because of
having the Firefox Account. Didn't lose any email since I had her on
IMAP, but he toasted all her contacts.

I imaged it all before giving it back to her and hope she learned a
lesson or two.

--
I Stand With Israel!

On Tue, 5 Nov 2024 20:43:42 -0600, sticks wrote:

> For some reason the nephew decides she needs to reinstall windows cause
> she got phished. Not sure exactly what procedure he used, but he
> effectively did a full install and erased everything she had on her
> system. All pictures, documents, contacts...every damn thing.

This is why I like to separate user files from the OS install. On a Linux
system, all the user stuff lives in the /home directory anyway, so you can
make that a separate partition. That way, if you ever need to reinstall
the OS, you don’t need to touch the user files.

On 05.11.24 21:43, sticks wrote:
> On 11/5/2024 8:19 PM, The Real Bev wrote:
>>>
>>> One of the things I really like about Firefox is the "Firefox Account".
>>> The ability to get it all set up on a different computer by just syncing
>>> into the account has made life easy many times.  With the old people I
>>> have to maintain systems on, I set them all up on one.
>>
>> Heh.  I am one of those old people and I started using Netscape .9 for
>> linux.  I even used Mosaic a few times!
>
> I meant no disrespect, and should have said older than me (I ain't no
> spring chicken). Couple days ago, my mom got silly and called the
> number on an email from someone claiming to be from paypal saying they
> were charging her account $500. My younger nephew was there at the
> time. She figured out during the call it was a scam and hung up.
> Delete the email and move on. No harm.
>
> For some reason the nephew decides she needs to reinstall windows cause
> she got phished. Not sure exactly what procedure he used, but he
> effectively did a full install and erased everything she had on her
> system. All pictures, documents, contacts...every damn thing. He never
> asked if she needed anything saved or backed up. Then, he got stuck in
> an endless loop which would not allow it to finish the installation. He
> texts me for help, and I let him sweat it out. When he failed to figure
> out how to move forward I told him to just leave it and I would take
> care of it.
>
> I was able to get it done and get everything installed again, and
> Firefox was the only thing that was back as it should be because of
> having the Firefox Account. Didn't lose any email since I had her on
> IMAP, but he toasted all her contacts.

My goodness! Use a Mac with iCloud.

> I imaged it all before giving it back to her and hope she learned a
> lesson or two.

Obviously not yet.

--
"De gustibus non est disputandum."