[wilsmex]

Well this was interesting. As someone who was actually building similar website in the late 90's I threw this into the Opus 4.5. Note the original author is wrong about the original site however:

"The Space Jam website is simple: a single HTML page, absolute positioning for every element, and a tiling starfield GIF background.".

This is not true, the site is built using tables, not positioning at all, CSS wasn't a thing back then...

Here was its one-shot attempt at building the same type of layout (table based) with a screenshot and assets as input: https://i.imgur.com/fhdOLwP.png

[thecr0w]

Thanks, my friend. I added a strike through of the error, a correction, and credited you.

I'm keeping it in for now because people have made some good jokes about the mistake in the comments and I want to keep that context.

[wilsmex]

You bet, Fun post and writeup, took me a bit down memory lane. I built several sites with nested table-based layouts, 1x1 transparent gif files set to strange widths to get layouts to force certain sizes. Little tricks with repeating gradient backgrounds for fancy 'beveled' effects. Under construction GIFs, page counters, GUESTBOOKS!, Photoshop drop-shadows on everything. All the things, fond-times. One or two I haven't touched in 20 years, but keep online for my own time-capsule memory :)

[govping]

The failure mode here (Claude trying to satisfy rather than saying 'this is impossible with the constraints') shows up everywhere. We use it for security research - it'll keep trying to find exploits even when none exist rather than admit defeat. The key is building external validation (does the POC actually work?) rather than trusting the LLM's confidence.

[yard2010]

Ah! I see the problem now! AI can't see shit, it's a statistical model not some form of human. It uses words, so like humans, it can say every shit it wants and it's true until you find out.

The number one rule of the internet is don't believe anything you read. This rule was lost in history unfortunately.

[manbash]

Ah, those days, where you would slice your designs and export them to tables.

[chrisweekly]

I remember building really complex layouts w nested tables, and learning the hard way that going beyond 6 levels of nesting caused serious rendering performance problems in Netscape.

[reconnecting]

Why not! We did this in 2024 for our website (1) to have zero CSS.

Still works, only Claude can not understand what those tables means.

1. https://www.tirreno.com

[thecr0w]

I learned recently that this is still how a lot of email html get generated.

[ralferoo]

It was relatively OK to deal with when the pages were created by coders themselves.

But then DreamWeaver came out, where you basically drew the entire page in 2D and it spat out some HTML tables that stitched it all back together again, and the freedom it gave our artists in drawing in 2D and not worrying about the output meant they went completely overboard with it and you'd get lots of tiny little slices everywhere.

Definitely glad those days are well behind us now!

[mmanfrin]

I yearn for those days. CSS was a mistake. Tables and DHTML is all one needs.

[gregoryl]

Gosh, there was a website, where you submit a PSD + payment, and they spit out a sliced design. Initially tables, later, CSS. Life saver.

[jweir]

And use a single px invisible gif to move things around.

But was Space Jam using multiple images or just one large image with and image map for links?

[bigbuppo]

Oh man, Photoshop still has the slice feature and it makes the most horrendous table-based layout possible. It's beautiful.

[alt227]

Off topic, but you have used imgur as your image hosting site, which cannot be viewed in the UK. If you want all readers to be able to see and understand your points, please could you use a more universally reachable host?

[M4v3R]

Please reach out to your nearest government official to tell them what do you think about the Imgur not working in your country.

[master-lincoln]

Which one could be used so everybody can read it? So many different autocratic systems to think about...

I think it's easier if you adapt and get a VPN or a new government.

[Aeolos]

Why is that?

[johnebgd]

I cut my teeth developing for the web using GoLive and will never forget how they used tables to layout a page from that tool…