The Oldest Image On My Computer

Is this one:

It's dated October 1995. I can't recall if I scanned it from some book - which is likely, since there weren't lots of images on the world wide web in 1995 - or if I found it somewhere.  I do know I put it either on my own web page, which I had through my work, or the KVRX web page, which I maintained at the time.

The story of how that happened is a classic of volunteer-run organizations. Someone at KVRX - the student radio station at the University of Texas at Austin* - & I wish could remember his name, he was a nice fellow - he had created a web page for the station but was about to graduate.  The first website was created in 1991, & this fellow created KVRX's in 1994, when I think I read there were fewer than 50,000 web sites out there.  He asked at a meeting if there were anyone who'd like to take it over.  I said, sure.  & after learning a little HTML, I did, & I maintained it & the KVRX email list for about three years.

To give you a little background, I got my first email address in December 1994, & I discovered the Usenet about that time.  Within a year I was responsible for a radio station's web page.

The attitude at KVRX was a bit snarky.  The Program Director at the time left informative notes in our mailboxes that were called "Bobo Letters."  They might begin "Hey loser!"  I attempted to transfer the snark to the web page.  I created Directors' pages & wrote fake biographies for them.  I don't know if they are saved anywhere - I don't know if I have them anymore - although I do know that I occasionally amused myself.  On one page, I said of a director, "He sends lots of money to self-help organizations - & they send the money right back."  This would be years before I would call my radio show Self Help Radio. But perhaps that's why I remember it.

It's hard to know how many files I regularly threw away because my computer - I believe it was a Mac Quadra - had so little disk space.  The truth is, I had no real sense of any kind of permanence in the online world, & most people didn't.  It was around 1996 that I first saw a billboard with a URL on it - & I realized, oh shit this is becoming something else.  But I don't want to complain about the state of the internet.  I was just thinking about old images tonight & wondered which was the oldest.

What I really miss are two games I loved to play back then: the original Civilization & a first-person shooter called Marathon.  I don't play many computer games anymore, but I remember staying late at work on a Friday to try to beat Marathon's "maze through a space station with no oxygen" level.  That was fun.

Also I miss KVRX.  One doesn't know how much one is having at the time.  Also I was pretty emotionally fucked-up.  But that's also not what I wanted to talk about here.  Just the oldest image that's on my computer.  Good grief, how many computers have I transferred that image from over the years?!?

* Whose current webpage is kvrx.org & sadly, it's pretty ugly at the moment.