Kaleidoscope!

[Juliet Elysa]

Today I was feeling nostalgic, and I wanted to find some of the Kaleidoscope schemes I loved as a kid. Unfortunately the original official website is no longer online, but I was able to find it using the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. As far as I know you can't get a preview of the schemes (you have to download and install them to see them), but it's way better than not having them at all!

Also, I found a program you can use to make your own schemes. I dabbled with it as a child, but back then my digital art skills were not very good. Now, however...

So I'm excited. I have backups of some of my favorite schemes, but having all of them at my fingertips again is just awesome.

(in case anyone's wondering, the original URL of the Kaleidoscope site is kaleidoscope.net)

 

[LOOM]

Wow, they just shut it down. The last archive.org capture is 28th December 2014. Too bad! I never used it when it was popular, but I browsed the site last year too look through it because it always comes up.

 

[techknight]

We are going to start seeing this more, and more.. unfortunately.

 

[unity]

I dont want to get off topic or sound paranoid. But the internet contains just a small sliver of human knowledge. Yet modern generations grew up online and think that the web is pretty much the only viable source for research. In short, if its not online it probably did not exist. Or if its not online, it can not be proven. And digital information is way to easy to manipulate.

This became most evident to me with Mac history. Has anyone tried to get conclusive information on the Mac clones? Its not easy! In fact other than basic specs, there is not much beyond that. And as sites vanish, more information is lost. I bought a 4400 clone mobo thinking it was some sorta of prototype. Turns out it was not, but only two Japanese sites has pics of this particular clone board.

And there is a screensaver I have been looking for over the years. Its called Chaos (I think that is the name). It was a random generating pixel/dot thing. I would use the word fractal, but that would be wrong. Anyway, as it drew is generated some pretty cool abstract images. I used to do screen shots like a ninja to capture the interesting ones for desktop pictures. Sadly I can not find this screen saver anywhere. As of right now, its like it never existed.

 

[Juliet Elysa]

Websites disappearing is the reason why the Wayback Machine exists. If there's a site you love check to see if the Machine has a version of it... and if not (or if you want to add the current version), they have a "Save Page Now" option right on the homepage. Use it! Your future self will thank you!

And I completely and totally agree with unity. I'm SO lucky that I had junior high teachers who forced us to learn how to use databases, libraries and physical books, archives with physical primary source stuff, etc. in addition to the internet. Being able to do all of that has given me the key to so much more knowledge than Google and other search engines have to offer... and it's a shame that most other people my age can't access it!

 

[Scott Baret]

One of the biggest problems is that we are going to lose some firsthand accounts of people who worked with these computers in their prime. The current crop of collectors/hobbyists coming up can't remember a time without the internet. Meanwhile, we're seeing lots and lots of great websites going offline, taking knowledge with them. Books get tossed, magazines get recycled, and primary sources take knowledge to their grave or simply lose it as a result of synaptic pruning.

I do have a plan in mind for these Macs, at least from one guy's perspective. Stay tuned. It's a project I thought up last fall, and one I've started working on with a hopeful completion date of September.

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

I thought I'd found some engineers who had worked on my Quadra, but sadly didn't.

 

[ArmorAlley]

get them while you can...

http://web.archive.org/web/20100330085716/http://kaleidoscope.net/schemes/schemes/

 

[techknight]

is there any way to rip them all without clicking each and every single one? 

Sure you could use a powershell script or something like that. but.... 

 

[CelGen]

Does it still insist on you registering every time you booted?

 

[galgot]

is there any way to rip them all without clicking each and every single one? 

Sure you could use a powershell script or something like that. but.... 

Try that, it worked for me :

wget -np -e robots=off --mirror --domains=staticweb.archive.org,web.archive.org http://web.archive.org/web/20100330085716/http://kaleidoscope.net/schemes/schemes/

Seems there is also a way to grab an entire site mirror from the Internet Archive with httrack. but it didn't worked for me on that particular site.

 

[ArmorAlley]

I found a nice Firefox plugin called Download Them All and I'm working my way through them. I'm only on C and I already have 864 files and they take up 114MB.

I'll put them up on the Macintosh Garden in CD-sized chunks when I'm finished.

 

[galgot]

The all thing is 3736 files, for 595 Mb , that's a lot of schemes to test

edit: want me to zip it and put it somewhere ?

 

[ArmorAlley]

I also have them downloaded, but only 3'716 files in 556MB.

I'll upload them once I have them on a CD-image.

 

[techknight]

We need to find a registered version, or get the author to release the full version of the program to get rid of that sticky nag on every startup

 

[Juliet Elysa]

That would be nice! Though honestly, I've grown used to the nagging since I've had the unregistered version of Kaleidoscope on all of my Macs (minus the Plus) for 20 years - my whole life. :lol: