The Monster Truck Madness 2 site is unchanged from 1998

[Arubis]

An HTML file virtually unchanged in fifteen years still renders cleanly in a modern browser. Backwards compatibility across open standards is a wonderful thing.

[thetrb]

I'm pretty sure a .doc file created fifteen years ago also still renders in Word.

Same for a PDF file created 15 years ago or most other formats. So I don't really see your point about open standards in this case.

[smrtinsert]

Well, more specifically table-based design. It Just Works (tm).

[frozenport]

I think we miss part of the user experience of having only 640x480 pixels.

[codex]

I was half expecting some if the words to blink at me, but, of course, support for the blink tag has been removed from modern browsers. Hooray for opinionated code.

[ck2]

You sure it is not just good quirks mode support?

[mmcconnell1618]

The System Requirements brought back memories:

* Multimedia PC with a Pentium 133 or higher processor

* Microsoft® Windows® 95 operating system or Windows NT® Workstation operating system version 4.0 with Service Pack 3

* 16 MB of RAM; 32MB recommended

* 30 MB of available hard-disk space; 110 MB recommended

* Quad-speed CD-ROM drive; 6x recommended

* Super VGA, 16-bit color monitor

* Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device; joystick or race car controller recommended

* Audio board with speakers or headphones

[wtallis]

What that doesn't mention is how much better the game looked when you ran it on something like a 3dfx Voodoo card. I remember when I upgraded from an S3 card to a Voodoo 3, the game suddenly had things like windshield glare and partially transparent water, and much higher texture resolutions.

[kombine]

Now compare this with modern mobile devices which run slowly and can do a fraction of what PCs were able to do 15 years ago having 10x lower clock rates.

[Nicholas_C]

I love this review[0] on Amazon:

>The system requirements are a bit steep, but if your computer can handle the game, you'll find this an extremely fun game to play.

[0]http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Monster-Truck-Madness-2-PC/p...

[FYI]

A 28.8Kbps Internet Connection used to be considered fast!

Optional: 28.8 or higher baud modem for head-to-head play For LAN play a local area network supporting either TCP/IP or IPX protocols is required Internet access required for internet play; connect time charges may apply Microphone for instantaneous voice communication during head-to-head play Graphics accelerator card compatible with the Microsoft Direct3D® API (for Windows 95 only)

Compatibles: Supports force feedback hardware compaticle with the Microsoft DirectInput® API (for Windows 95 only) Supports MMX technology Supports Pentium II processor platform with AGP

[jonomw]

Oh man, I don't have a CD-ROM drive. Guess I can't play :(

[maveonair]

Windows NT itself was sometimes a pretty awesome game back then :)!

[MartinCron]

I tried to install the demo and it failed on needing DirectX 5.2

[davej]

I actually played this game on a Pentium 60 with 8 MB of RAM. It ran pretty well if you turned down all the graphics settings.

[joshguthrie]

"IRQ 5, DMA 1" anyone?

[TallboyOne]

Oh god, the memories :|

[cocoflunchy]

Motocross Madness 2 is also still up: http://www.microsoft.com/games/motocross2/

And this list wouldn't be complete without Midtown Madness (1?) http://www.microsoft.com/games/midtown/

[edit] I'm sure you can find a bunch of others by browsing through the wayback machine (http://web.archive.org/web/19980214201021/http://microsoft.c...), like http://www.microsoft.com/games/outwars/

[TallboyOne]

Motocross Madness and Midtown Madness were both such fundamental pieces of my childhood. I wish I could convey the amount of nostalgia I have. Motocross Madness was the first time I actively tried to use a computer to 'do' something. I had to program my own tracks, and it was insanely hard at the time, but god were those the glory days.

[nlh]

I basically know the geography of Chicago, having only been there in real life a handful of times, because of my time playing Midtown Madness and the various MS Flight Simulators.

I actually got a bit sad during a trip a few weeks ago when I saw that Meigs Field had been demolished.

[MichaelTieso]

Wow. Motocross Madness brings back some incredible memories. I had a force-feedback controller with it too. Loved that moving the controller actually moved the bike. Good times.

[cmac2992]

midtown madness is where its at

[locusm]

Jesus, that brought back some memories - Motocross Madness LAN matches FTW

[usernew1817]

unfortunately it seems "Angel Studios" the developer of the site midtown, is out of business

[csomar]

Try refreshing the page and you'll get a different sound-track. Made me curious about the implementation.

Interestingly, they are using a custom random function

   today=new Date();
   jran=today.getTime();
   var number=5;
   var random_number=1;
   var bgsnd="/games/random/bgsnd.wav";
   var images="/games/random/intro.JPG";
   var sizes=" width=602 height=228";
   function randomizeNumber()
   {
   ia=9301;
   ic=49297;
   im=233280;
   jran = (jran*ia+ic) % im;
   random_number=Math.ceil( (jran/(im*1.0)) *number);

   if (random_number==1){
	  bgsnd="audio/intro/yeeha.wav";}
   if (random_number==2){
	  bgsnd="audio/intro/crash_10.wav";}
   if (random_number==3){
	  bgsnd="audio/intro/heybuddy.wav";}
   if (random_number==4){
      bgsnd="audio/intro/lovethatmud.wav";}
   if (random_number==5){
 	  bgsnd="audio/intro/webintro.wav";}
 
   }

And then they run it when the page opens

	          randomizeNumber();
	          document.open();
		  if (version == "n3" || version == "n4"){
		  document.write("<embed src="+bgsnd+" autostart=true hidden=true></embed>");}
		  if (version == "e3" || version == "e4"){
		  document.write("<bgsound src="+bgsnd+">");}
		  document.close();

[aatish]

I see your monster truck madness website, and I raise you the Space Jam website, unchanged since 1996 http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm

[Titanous]

    $ curl -sI http://www.microsoft.com/games/monster/default.htm | grep Last-Modified
    Last-Modified: Tue, 23 May 2006 17:19:11 GMT

[DigitalSea]

Nostalgia overload. I absolutely loved this game back in the day. Surprised to see you can still even download the demo of the game even. I'm guessing this was one of those sites Microsoft forgot about. Look at those system requirements, back when PC power was still measured in megahertz and ram was still referred to in megabytes, crazy.

[everettForth]

http://www.dolekemp96.org/main.htm

[8ig8]

I'm not sure why, but the '.htm' extension always felt dirty to me. Still does.

[Blih]

http://www.microsoft.com/games/empires/features.htm

Age of empires

[aroman]

Yup, came here to post this link. I literally was just playing the trial version hosted on this website YESTERDAY. It plays perfectly under WINE in Mac OS 10.9 on my MacBook Air.

Such a fantastic game.

[Aldo_MX]

It's sad that since AoE Online the main site got broken :(, same with AoC's homepage.

[throwaway0094]

Yeah, I immediately thought of that too. I've been to that webpage in the past 1-2 years, it's a game I used to play with friends every once in a while.

[wnevets]

MSN Gaming Zone is where all the cool kids hang

[sunwooz]

Why were we so fascinated by black backgrounds back in the 90's? I know I was guilty of it.

[verisimilitude]

Black backgrounds definitely have a different look on CRTs; that may have been a factor.

[sgustard]

Black backgrounds were all the rage in the 70s too, along with green text.

[danso]

AFAIK, the original homepage for "Black Hawk Down", which was a long-form serial newspaper story before it became a book and a movie, still looks as I remember it back in 1997:

http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/sitemap.asp

Back then, it was one of the most sophisticated news and multimedia packages. It still is today.

[malkia]

I worked on the port to pc of this game - http://web.archive.org/web/20020325194655/http://mgspc.com/ - the mgspc.com still is owned by Microsoft, and at some point the redirection worked... Sadly it's gone ;(

[Splendor]

http://www.microsoft.com/games/monster/audio/boogievan.wav

[codfrantic]

Is that Steve Ballmer?!

[phillc]

I actually owe my programming career to MTM. When I was ~10-11 years old, I held many tournaments. At some point, my tournament grew to the point where I couldn't manage signups day of, and tried to make a website using frontpage + some form of extensions (angelfire? tripod?) to have early signups. I eventually learned javascript and a tiny bit of perl.

Looking back at that point in time, I did a horrible job of managing those tournaments (Sometimes my pre-teen responsibilities took priority and made me miss some tournaments. Oh and I seem to remember storing passwords in clear text). However I look at myself today and am extremely happy to be a successful developer, which may have never happened if it hadn't been for the MTM1/MTM2 games and websites, which I am certain I probably copied a ton of "codes" from back then.

[TheTechBox]

I used to love this game. Wonder why they keep these sites up? I mean looking at the domain it's hardly buried deep within the MS site...

[rocky1138]

"Xbox unveiled at the 2001 Consumer Electronics Show."

[jakestl]

It installs if you set it to Windows 95 compatibility mode. The game runs too if you tweak the graphics settings.

For being a 15 year old game I'm surprised at the amount of features it has (instant replay, view from other trucks, etc.)

[petersimones]

I remember buying the steering wheel for Midtown Madness, which was larger than many desktop monitors today and required a near-bolting to your desk, and feeling like I was on the cutting edge of gaming.

[mxfh]

That wheel still works with basic built-in drivers under Windows 7 for me, Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback Wheel USB was built rock solid.

[rebel]

I had the exact same experience!

[nnnnni]

"HEY BUDDY, READY TO GET MUDDY?"

That reminded me why I generally always leave my sound muted unless I need it for something specific. Ugh, remember the old days when every page had a midi embedded in it?