[HN Gopher] Tamale King: ecommerce website from 1990s
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Tamale King: ecommerce website from 1990s
Author : datelligence
Score : 94 points
Date : 2021-01-28 00:03 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tamaleking.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tamaleking.com)
| brosinante wrote:
| "90 day limited warranty guaranteed to be free from defects in
| material and workmanship."
|
| Is such a short warranty common in the states?
| aparks517 wrote:
| In my experience, 90 days is very common in B2B. Though I
| wouldn't be surprised to learn that it varies by industry.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Retail warranty is usually 1 year, but this is B2B.
| piker wrote:
| The counter element is interesting:
|
| <img src="http://count.freeyellow.com/cgi-
| shl/count.exe?df=tamaleking...." alt="**" nosave="" width="100"
| height="30">
|
| Interesting in that it calls a windows executable. Haven't seen
| that before, although it of course makes sense in cgi-bin.
|
| Also interesting are the headers returned by Apache:
|
| HTTP/1.1 200 OK
|
| Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 13:34:42 GMT
|
| Content-Type: text/html
|
| Content-Length: 14792
|
| Connection: keep-alive
|
| Server: Apache/2
|
| Last-Modified: Sun, 30 Jan 2011 09:02:49 GMT
|
| Cache-Control: max-age=3600
|
| Accept-Ranges: bytes
|
| Etag: "39c8-49b0c90420040"
|
| Expires: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 14:31:11 GMT
|
| Age: 211
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| looks like pretty standard headers
| phnofive wrote:
| I think it's the last modified field...
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| It maybe used to be a Windows executable (or any other platform
| using the .exe extension), but it probably isn't these days -
| but of course they cannot simply move the script to a different
| place because it would break all existing counters.
|
| You can still occasionally see this on some websites with old
| infrastructure or infrastructure that has grown over the years.
| For example if you book a train ticket in Germany through
| Deutsche Bahn, it will go through bin/query.exe!
| netsharc wrote:
| Your mention of Deutsche Bahn reminds me of how their first
| online timetable was some guy's email address, he extracted
| data from their CD-ROM, and created a service that
| periodically fetched his e-mails, parsed them (the timetable
| query had to have a particular syntax), processed the routes,
| and sent replies to the e-mails.
|
| It ran on a (IIRC) 486 in his student apartment.
|
| I wish I could link you to this story, sadly Google nowadays
| can give you train timetables, but it no longer cares what
| words you enter in a search query, it just thinks I'm looking
| for the schedule information of train services around me.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Judging by the 404 error, I'd say that it's definitely not a
| Windows executable or anything else.
| fred_is_fred wrote:
| The pages are conveniently numbered so I can make sure to go
| through them in order which is nice.
|
| I wonder what the creator of the HTML is up to these days -
| Robert Moseley.
| fblp wrote:
| Is this actually an ecommerce site? I can't see a way to buy.
| macspoofing wrote:
| There's a phone number right on the front page.
| wejick wrote:
| >make sure you have a broadband connection like DSL or Cable.
| This file is too large to download from a dial up connection.
|
| Very emphatic, not like today's news portal which plays video
| automatically.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Nice work but it Lings Cars beats it hands down:
|
| https://www.lingscars.com/
| dublin wrote:
| The impressive thing about that one is that it's still alive
| and working to support a going business that's delivered cars
| this week!
| amelius wrote:
| I can see now how Amazon became a thing.
| joemasilotti wrote:
| It's... so fast! You click a link and BOOM the page loads. Sad
| that that experience isn't ubiquitous across the web anymore.
| dublin wrote:
| I can be, if you don't server everything through databases and
| app servers. Remember that HTML was really designed to work
| reasonably well in the age of dial-up modems, so it flat
| screams if you use it correctly.
|
| (Also note that coming from the age before CSS dramatically
| helps both speed and code complexity - table-based layouts were
| certainly abused, but they had their advantages, too - and
| should still almost always be used for _actual_ tabular data!)
|
| Have a look at this, if you want a more modern way to build
| sites this fast: https://jamstack.org/generators/
| markdown wrote:
| Today you, tomorrow me.
| [deleted]
| jxramos wrote:
| This part's the best, full page ad chockfull of humor
| http://www.tamaleking.com/page8.html
| mumblemumble wrote:
| Are we sure this is from the _early_ '90s?
|
| For reference, CERN released the original Web software to the
| public in April 1993, HTML tables (which feature prominently on
| this page) entered the standard toward the end of 1995, and the
| version of HTML this page uses, 4.0 transitional, was published
| in December 1997. In short, aside from the embedded YouTube
| video, this looks more like a late '90s website to me.
|
| For reference, here is an example of what I would expect an early
| '90s website to look like:
| http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
| dang wrote:
| OK, we can take 'early' out of the title above.
| melomal wrote:
| Not much action pre-2001:
| https://web.archive.org/web/2020*/http://www.tamaleking.com/...
|
| But can only get to '96
| whalesalad wrote:
| One of the best parts about growing up in So Cal was the fact
| that every once in a while there would be a few girls at school
| who would have coolers with dozens and dozens of hot homemade
| Tamale's for sale.
| conductr wrote:
| Similar to my experience growing up in Houston where it seems
| everyone has a side hustling abuelita tamale connection.
|
| My parents grew up in suburb of Friendswood and this tamale
| truck [0] is a local legend. I remember early 80s it was the
| only thing on this FM road for what seemed like miles in either
| direction. I think it's 2nd generation owner now but I went by
| last year and it's still very good.
|
| [0] https://goo.gl/maps/fkMrZPm4S4mHAW68A
| jxramos wrote:
| every now and then there'd be people hawking tamale's at a
| store plaza's parking lot by our house. In our house we still
| repeat the phrase we heard from one of the sellers standing
| in the dark shadows under a tree in that parking lot saying
| "tamale, tamale, tamale".
|
| Pretty awesome that tamale truck has a facebook page
| https://www.facebook.com/hottamales76
| alangibson wrote:
| We used to buy them from a neighbor every week back in Texas.
| It was traditional for the older Mexican ladies to get together
| and make them on the weekends. Making tamales is quite a
| production, so you have to make a ton in one day and sell them
| over the week.
| 01100011 wrote:
| Yep. Every December the tamale lady would show up and sell out
| of the coolers in the back of her toyota pickup truck in the
| Ralph's parking lot.
|
| Also you have the Ice Cream or Corn vendors pushing a cart
| around the neighborhood. I miss SoCal... the traffic sucks but
| so much else is wonderful.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Did the school allow that? I'm happy they did, but surprised.
| com2kid wrote:
| What is amazing is the story behind the product,
| http://www.tamaleking.com/page5.html, and how it really is a case
| of someone spotting a problem, learning multiple new specialized
| skills to create a solution, patenting that solution, and then
| making a living off of the invention.
|
| People criticize the patent system in regards to software, but it
| has been reliably driving progress in meat space for a long time!
| eggfriedrice wrote:
| What I like most about this is that the site didn't fall over
| from the HN hug of death.
|
| I assume it must be their massively scalable Kubernetes + NoSQL
| DB + CDN infrastructure.
| soared wrote:
| I mean yeah, plain html/css scales well for any site that just
| exists to serve a couple lines of text and images. I can't
| think of a single site (outside of maybe craigslist) that can
| get by with that functionality today.
|
| Newspaper sites are the obvious example you'd think of... but
| they need comments, advertising (or login functionality),
| moderation tools, etc.
| stickfigure wrote:
| In fairness, the hard part is scaling redundant HA phone
| operators. I'm sure between twilio, deep learning, and GPT3
| they have the problem almost solved.
|
| Riiing. _Hi, I 'd like to order tamale maker TK156._
|
| _No problem! Where in Tokelau would you like us to send 156
| tamales?_
| subpixel wrote:
| They ought to sell t-shirts, I'd buy one.
| avs733 wrote:
| a t-shirt about the product they sell or the nuclear bombproof
| ecommerce infrastructure they created on a Pentium 1?
| Igelau wrote:
| 1) It looks totally fine on mobile.
|
| 2) I want to hug that VCR gif like a long-lost friend.
|
| 3) I really want a tamale from this food truck looking gizmo.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| Obligatory: The official site for the 1996 film Space Jam is
| still up:
|
| https://www.spacejam.com/
| clawlor wrote:
| Dead at the moment. Tamale King 1, space ballers 0.
| heyflyguy wrote:
| the icing is the aol email!
| [deleted]
| Igelau wrote:
| I literally cheered when I saw that.
| tomcam wrote:
| Lightning fast. Does the job.
| jascii wrote:
| I am currently hosting a website that has been around in pretty
| much the same form since the 1990's:
| http://www.marinerkayaks.com/
| (https://web.archive.org/web/19991013075202/http://www.marine...)
| When their previous host crapped out, I had to recreate it from a
| combination of crappy old wysiwyg tool files and archive.org
| snapshots.
|
| I'm glad I get to do it, it is an important part of our
| communities history and the "stolen kayak spreadsheet" still gets
| updated...
| mariocesar wrote:
| I saw the site, read the whole page. and I want to buy it. Good
| marketing.
| sharker8 wrote:
| Way cool, with javascript! Ad_status.js, remote.js, and
| cast_sender.js!
| jascii wrote:
| archive.org's first snapshot is from June 2001:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20010607155325/http://www.tamale...
| The public wayback machine started in 2001, however, they started
| archiving in 1996: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine
| crabmusket wrote:
| Fast, clean, and so easy to navigate thanks to hyperlinked CTAs
| like "DOWNLOAD" and "ENTER HERE!"
|
| It's perfect.
| MayeulC wrote:
| I also appreciate that it is considerate of its customers'
| Internet connection:
|
| > This is the complete video. This is a large file, make sure
| you have a broadband connection like DSL or Cable.
|
| > This file is too large to download from a dial up connection.
|
| (The file itself is indicated as being 30MB)
|
| Also, this site is on the fastest side of the Internet, despite
| seemingly calling an exe each time, as per other comments.
| alangibson wrote:
| I wonder if the company still exists. I'm seriously considering
| trying to get one. I'd kill for some tamales, but I never make
| them because it's an insane amount of work.
| seryoiupfurds wrote:
| This page has a scanned price list from October 2019.
|
| http://www.tamaleking.com/page4.html
| jascii wrote:
| Back before the pandemic we would have tamale making parties,
| hang out with friends, make tamales, drink, eat tamales! That
| was a lot of fun!
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| Hot tamale, you say? :-) http://weebls-stuff.com/toons/hot-
| tamales-animated-music-vid...
| geocrasher wrote:
| Three points:
|
| 1) No optimization, no problem. Plain static HTML needs nothing
| more than maybe some basic caching. Apache hardly even knows it's
| there.
|
| 2) Why is this such a lost art? Why do we tell people to go learn
| full stack development when HTML can do the job quite well? Are
| we trying to compensate poor marketing skills by adding whiz bang
| buzzword bingo technologies?
|
| 3) If you are now hungry for Tamales, and I know you are, Costco
| (in the US) has great tamales in the refrigerated section near
| the pastas and sausages. They are muy bueno :)
| twic wrote:
| What is a tamale? It's some sort of steamed maize doughnut?
| dicroce wrote:
| Its not sweet (usually)... It is steamed though, and
| generally filled with some kind of yummy meat. For some
| reason, I grew up eating them with scrambled eggs so that's
| how I like em.
| geocrasher wrote:
| The tale of how this guy became the "Tamale King" is
| fantastically written, funny, and interesting.
|
| http://www.tamaleking.com/page5.html
| twic wrote:
| Seconded, this is a hell of a read. The guy's mother is the
| real hero.
|
| EDIT This is a perfect example of the Hero's Journey [1]
|
| Call to adventure: the kid selling tamales in the bar
|
| Supernatural aid: his mother
|
| The threshold: calling round the various suppliers
|
| Challenges and temptations: making the tamales by hand
|
| Revelation: he conceives the machine
|
| Transformation: hiring the machinists, perfecting the machine
|
| Atonement with the father: the patent attorney?!
|
| Return: throwing the Cinco de Mayo party
|
| Perfect, i tell you!
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey
| ConceptJunkie wrote:
| I would totally love to be able to buy those spices and
| seasonings, even at prices adjusted for inflation.
| rkuzsma wrote:
| For fun, I built a search experience for their product catalog
| using App Search this morning. https://agitated-
| heyrovsky-08b108.netlify.app/
| arkitaip wrote:
| This is one of the best landing pages ever because it sells the
| products with minimal UI, and decades after its inception, it
| renders perfectly fine.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| I like this one even better and I think many of you will too. I
| refuse to close the tab just so I can look at it once in a
| while. It makes me smile. I might buy some tiny trees and a
| Hornby Peckett 614.
|
| https://www.newmodellersshop.co.uk/
| ivanche wrote:
| And it's fully responsive!
| arkitaip wrote:
| Amazing. Thanks for the link dude!
| fullstop wrote:
| http://www.tamaleking.com/page2.html is very improperly
| formatted.
| ArtWomb wrote:
| FREE VHS ;)
|
| I take a lot of design inspo from this twitter bot that randomly
| chooses web archive screengrabs. Indeed, the free video offer
| seems to be a huge distribution trend circa 1996!
|
| https://twitter.com/wayback_exe/
|
| One site I recently stumbled upon from that golden era is the
| UofM's Geometry Center. Static content still displays. But
| interactive Java applet support in modern browsers is an issue.
|
| http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/
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(page generated 2021-01-28 23:02 UTC)