
The Animatrix - MichaelTieso
http://www.intothematrix.com/
======
billyhoffman
"View Source" on this home page is a fun/terrible time capsule into web
development in 2001.

1- FRAMES!

2- Table based layout

3- Preloading image via JavaScript! In the <HEAD> no less! Screw start render
time, we are doing this!

4- Opening links in new pop-up windows. Ahh the days before tabs....

5- Swapping images with onmouseover, like some kind of an animal

6- Burning text into images to use a specific font

7- Browser sniffing the navigator.appName object

~~~
david_p
On the other hand, the sites still renders perfectly 14 years later.

It would be interesting to see how today's super-fancy-html5 javascript-
everywhere no-tables Websites look in 14 years with a modern browser.

All the "terrible" techniques you mention actually do the job in a
surprisingly time-robust way.

Engineering versus hype.

~~~
znpy
THIS. THIS. THIS. THIS. A MILLION TIMES THIS.

The source code is awful and crappy, but 14 years later it still renders.

Also if you save the page and load in the browser it will still load
correctly.

~~~
wcarss
this might also be an artifact of the development of browsers -- IE was a
dominant force until relatively recent times, and browsers had to standardize
what existed, then build carefully on top.

It may be the case that the techniques used were particularly robust, but it
may also be the case that we've striven to keep them unbroken.

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huxley
For anyone who liked the "Kid's Story" and "A Detective's Story" segments,
those were done by Watanabe Shinichirō who directed Cowboy Bebop and Samurai
Champloo, two amazing anime series.

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iMark
Digital archeology is going to be an interesting field sooner or later, sooner
from the looks of this.

It's amusing to see the video sizes - "Large bandwidth 640x272"

My, how times have changed...

~~~
sp332
Oh it already is, check out this blog about Geocities [http://contemporary-
home-computing.org/1tb/](http://contemporary-home-computing.org/1tb/)

And you can emulate so much software in your browser now, including rare
stuff. _In your browser_ \- just click a link and play history.
[https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games](https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games)

If you want to help, first donate to the Internet Archive
[http://archive.org/donate/](http://archive.org/donate/) then send your
floppies and old CD-ROMS to Jason Scott
[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4624](http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4624)
and then help us back up the archive
[http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=INTERNETARCHIVE.BAK/g...](http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=INTERNETARCHIVE.BAK/git-
annex_implementation)

~~~
drzaiusapelord
I tried this and was hilariously stopped by 1980's DRM:

[http://i.imgur.com/Z1HxVhU.png](http://i.imgur.com/Z1HxVhU.png)

Sure, I can find the manual somewhere, but its a PITA. Today's DRM in the
future will not be this easy to overcome.

~~~
sp332
Oh there are a lot of those, there's a whole tumblr
[http://pleaseregisterthisshareware.tumblr.com/](http://pleaseregisterthisshareware.tumblr.com/)
You could probably brute-force that one, just click refresh to reboot until
you get it :)

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robogimp
Internet old timer here, I watched these videos through this site on their
release dates, AMA...

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Me too, now it all seems so horribly pretentious and the entire series just
some sexy veneer over a lot of milquetoast AI and information theory concepts.

The first movie still holds fairly well as a stand-alone. I feel there's a
reason sci-fi creatives get reigned in by management often. Its to avoid
sequalitis where movies become info dumping grounds for whatever books the
director read recently. Frankly, I feel the series would have been better as a
bunch of books instead of movies with a lot of 25 cent words tossed it. I feel
embarrassed for the Watchowski's anytime "The Architect" is on-screen.

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DannoHung
Don't miss Neil Gaiman's contribution to the Matrix's folklore:
[http://www.voidspace.org.uk/cyberpunk/goliath.shtml](http://www.voidspace.org.uk/cyberpunk/goliath.shtml)

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hartator
Am I the only one who think that this page loads surprisingly good?

I don't think a modern website with CSS3/HTML5 favored will load that perfect
in 10 years.

~~~
strathmeyer
It's because there are no advertisement/cross site cookies that you need to
wait to load. I've been working directly with the web since 2000, pages loaded
faster back then over 56K modems.

~~~
Semiapies
Yup. I build HTML 5 sites that don't have those (often for intranets), and
clients always mention how fast they come up.

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jasonkostempski
I've got these on DVD, they came in a box set [1] I got a long time ago. The
Neo bust is on top of my work computer right now :)

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Collection-Collectors-Revolutions-
Revi...](http://www.amazon.com/Collection-Collectors-Revolutions-Revisited-
Animatrix/dp/B0002Y69NQ)

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smacktoward
"We got both kinds of video: QuickTime AND Flash!"

(For those who don't get the reference:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSZfUnCK5qk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSZfUnCK5qk))

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VikingCoder
...I'd love to see someone try to get "Final Flight of Osiris" to render in
real time on UE4.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueiBYxI6Eqg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueiBYxI6Eqg)

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NelsonMinar
May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins.

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ramgorur
the japnese katakana titles are fun to read

the second rennaissance part 1: za sekando rune-sansu pāto 1

program: puroguramu

detective story: detekutebu sutōrī

the second rennaissance part 2: za sekando rune-sansu pāto 2

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franze
sadly to videos don't work anymore (to download)

~~~
jakebasile
They don't, but if you have Netflix you can watch it there. It was recently
added.

I'm not an anime fan, but The Second Renaissance 1 & 2 are excellent.

~~~
Vexs
To my mind, the animatrix was a better successor to the matrix than the
sequels ever were. (Then again, just about anything would be.) It showcases
the history of the matrix, pleads a case for the machine, and shows life in
the matrix. It's an underwatched not-quite-masterpiece that is still
excellent.

~~~
revscat
I recently re-watched the sequels and came to find myself puzzled by the
amount of vitriol they receive. Can you explain what your objection to them
were? I found them at least entertaining, and consistent with the original.
They were by no means above criticism, but I certainly don't think they
deserve the level of scorn you typically see.

~~~
silverbax88
Matrix: What if we are all living in a simulation and don't know it? What does
this mean for the human existence and how we perceive it?

Animatrix: What if we get so smart we build machines that are so advanced that
we can discriminate against them? What happens when humans create life and
expect that life to remain servile?

The Matrix Reloaded: What if we fleshed out this world to show multiple
societies co-existing, although not entirely peacefully? What if we throw a
bunch of rehashed dialog from other science fiction films? What if we change
the style to be slicker? Can we pull it off if we inject just enough substance
to make people want to watch a third movie?

The Matrix Revolutions: Take the wheel, I have no idea how to end things but
there should be some massive fight scenes. Ka-CHING, baby.

~~~
g8oz
Was it me or in one of the sequels was there some monologue about simulations
that seemed to be a philosophical take on garbage collection in a VM?

~~~
silverbax88
Yes, I'm pretty sure that was in the second one. Half of that movie was
brilliant and cerebral. Half of it was, well...not.

~~~
shash7
Do you remember which scene it was shown in?

~~~
silverbax88
Going entirely off of memory I would guess it was the discussion between Neo
and the Architect, where the Architect describes Neo as an 'anomaly' that is
expected.

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aw3c2
Hey DarkStarX1, you are shadowbanned and I don't see any reason in your post
history so I post this in the hopes you see it.

