Website Addresses on UK TV ads (90s/00s)

[Steve in Pudsey]

I know we've gone off on a tangent here but .gb was indeed meant for the UK, but somebody created .uk and we stuck with it. I think .gb was used in the early days for government purposes but it fell out of favour.

Indeed .gb is the ISO code but has the further issue or excluding Northern Ireland.

[Richard]

I know we've gone off on a tangent here but .gb was indeed meant for the UK, but somebody created .uk and we stuck with it. I think .gb was used in the early days for government purposes but it fell out of favour.

Yes, think hmg.gb existed at one point.

I think .uk came into use via the JANET network used by universities.

I heard somewhere (thought it may be rubbish) that the United Kingdom uses the GB ISO code because originally both the United Kingdom and Ukraine wanted UK (this is despite Ukraine being a constituent republic of the USSR at that point). The United Kingdom got GB and Ukraine got UA.

The code “UK” is used for the Ukrainian language.

[Steve in Pudsey]

I think it was that JANET had already been using .uk so it was already established by the time the proposal to use the ISO defined codes was agreed.

[TheMightyTRex]

Bit OT but at its height - 1/2 of all CDs pressed worldwide were AOL CD's

And people collect them as well:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/kwxngw/i...ecting-511

Wow
I love it when people collect random stuff. There is something about the enthusiasm of these people

[James Martin]

I used 'em as coasters. They popped up everywhere.

The thing I hated with AOL is you were forced to use their proprietary software - you couldn't just use Dial Up Networking. And before they released a Windows 95 only version, anything which didn't work on 3.1 wouldn't see the Internet. The built in browser was awful I remember, and didn't support animated GIFs, scrolling test, embedded sounds etc. I think I had to install a Windows 3.1 version of Netscape to get around the shortcomings of AOL's own browser. The Windows 95 only version addressed this by integrating IE3.

[Neil Jones]

The only real selling point of AOL Desktop was its walled environment so it was probably useful for newbies. For everybody else it was a pain in the arse to do anything seriously on it, but back in the days of Windows 95 browsers weren't bundled with Windows, you just got Windows, a few applications and that was it. Netscape was the browser of the day in any event, and Internet Explorer wasn't bundled with Windows until the days of Windows 98, and then proceeded to completely destroy Netscape in the space of about five years.

Of course that begs the interesting question, predating USB support, how do you get a browser onto a computer that doesn't have a browser to use to get a browser. You were doing well to get a sound card as standard in the 90s never mind a CD unit. I believe Netscape used to come on floppy disk.

[Inspector Sands]

CD-ROM drives were pretty standard by the time Windows 95 was around weren't they. I certainly remember installing Netscape Navigator from a CD

[TIGHazard]

CD-ROM drives were pretty standard by the time Windows 95 was around weren't they. I certainly remember installing Netscape Navigator from a CD

My understanding, from watching things like LGR is that they came with most 'decent' new Windows 95 computers (so not the cheapest models), but they were still somewhat expensive as a add on for older units.

So if you were buying a new Windows 95 computer, it was likely you were going to get a CD-ROM Drive but for those sticking with DOS/Win 3.1 it wasn't until Windows 98 that you would finally get one.

[James Martin]

I remember that I obtained IE3 as well as IE4 (and the Active Desktop) via magazine cover CDs. I believe before that I obtained Netscape via a CompuServe promo CD.

[thegeek]

Could you imagine this as an onscreen URL?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM_ruBwYGtg

Wow it's like a telephone number! I guess at the time it really was just a bit of fun, no real serious need to get people to remember or visit, unlike today.

Actually it was a by product of the way the system worked. You needed to specify you were using http/web traffic. You couldn't just type in bbcnc.org.uk as the computer/browser wouldn't know what to do with it. The default later came to be to default to that (and later https).

Incidentally the whole www thing isn't and never has been required. Technically www.tvliveforum.com and tvliveforum.com can be two different websites, though if you set the web server configuration up you can send one to the other.

Some browsers would make assumptions based on the hostname - when BBC News Online launched, it lived on a separate server to the main BBC website, at news.bbc.co.uk. Its address was only publicised on-screen as that for a couple of days, because if you didn't qualify it with an http://, then some browsers assumed it was a Usenet newsgroup server, stuck news:// on the front, and tried to launch it in a newsreader app. The BBC got around this problem by setting up bbc.co.uk/news as a redirect, and publicising that on screen instead.

[DJGM1974]

I remember going through about 20 different ISPs during the 56K modem days, the most curious of which was BigBlueSky
which you made a one off payment and then basically got unlimited 0800 Internet access (although I think only 'off peak'
e.g. after 6pm), it didn't end up lasting very long of course!

Same here with regards to BigBlueSky.net ... paid £25 upfront, and had basically unlimited dial-up internet access via an 0800 number. IIRC, it had it's only dial-up software that placed an ad banner at the top the screen which stayed until it auto-disconnected after 2 hours.
I think I got about 3-4 months worth of use out of it before the ISP went bye-bye forever, so I think I got my money's worth!