My digital archeology adventure
===============================

In order to fulfil my mad imperative to make my website as backwards
compatible as possible, I've had to test it in multiple vintage
browsers, one of them Netscape. However, I was unable to find a copy
of Netscape 4.04 in Spanish. It wasn't in the Internet Archive, it
wasn't in any of the mirrors of the Netscape FTP, it was nowhere to
be found, probably lost media as people never really bothered to do
full backups of all translated versions of the program, and I really
wanted THAT specific version of the program.

For a long time I searched the vast landscapes of the net in vain,
hoping to find at least one file. No results. But then I found
DiscMaster, a search engine that looks for files deep in the vaults
of the Internet Archive, in particular inside old CD images (think
shareware discs). Armed with newly found hope, I looked up
N32E404.EXE (the filename of the Netscape 4.04 installer) and was
presented with a list of results. It had found the file in multiple
discs with names in English, German and Japanese. Obviously, I
thought, the exact file I wanted wouldn't be in any of them. Death!
But I pushed on, and never losing faith, I clicked on the disc
titled DOKAN 6. I noticed once I saw the cover that it was the
companion disc to a Spanish anime magazine from back in the day
(1998 or so), so I downloaded the N32E404.EXE within and... YES! It
really was Netscape 4.04 in Spanish! I almost cried (not really)...
I had really thought this version of the browser in my language was
lost in time. I spent an entire afternoon looking through these
anime discs, finding even more versions of Netscape in Spanish
(enough to start my own collection), but ultimately I was enchanted
by all the low resolution videos, photos and music of anime shows of
the time.

A few days later I managed to find Netscape 2.02 and 3.01 Gold in
Spanish in a few old shareware discs and internet connection kits
offered by ISPs (I can't believe people bothered to archive those).
A complete victory. All the versions of Netscape I've managed to
find in Spanish are available in cidoku.net's Netscape archive[1].

Who would've thought that I would find the files I wanted in an old
anime mag? I'm thankful not only to the authors of the magazine for
(unknowingly) salvaging these rare files, but also to all the
people who rip discs like these and upload them to the Internet
Archive for losers with too much free time for their own good like
me to find.

Tempus edax rerum... not this time.

[1] gopher://cidoku.net:70/1/en/files/software/netscape/