It’s Only When You Look Back / 回首往事方知变迁

Discussion on lobste.rs I remember talking to my Grandfather shortly before he passed away about the changes he’d seen in his lifetime. Born in 1911, the thing he said that really stuck with me was that when he was a child people were barely puttering around off the ground in aeroplanes; A few years before his 60th birthday, men walked on the moon. 在 lobste.rs 上的讨论。我记得在祖父去世前不久，曾与他谈起他一生中所见证的变迁。他出生于 1911 年，他所说的一番话让我记忆犹新：在他孩提时代，人们才刚刚开始驾驶飞机在离地不远的地方蹒跚飞行；而就在他 60 岁生日前几年，人类已经登上了月球。

When I look back at the simple 8-bit microcomputers of my childhood, compared to the modern world in which my daughter is growing up, I can’t help but feel like I’ve seen a similar step change. But just as my Poppa said “When it’s happening you don’t notice it. It’s only when you look back you see how much everything has changed.” 回望我童年时期那些简单的 8 位微型计算机，再对比我女儿成长的现代世界，我不禁感到自己也见证了类似的跨越式变革。正如我祖父所说：“当事情发生时，你并不会察觉。只有当你回首往事时，才会发现一切已经发生了多么巨大的变化。”

Last month, this website passed a pretty big milestone: it’s been online for over 25 years (since Tuesday, May 29th 2001 - a few days after I finished my university finals exams), making it my online home now for my entire professional career. All along, I’ve been creating content and documenting my various projects and interests of the time, which has turned it into something of a personal time capsule. 上个月，这个网站迎来了一个重要的里程碑：它已经在线运行超过 25 年了（自 2001 年 5 月 29 日星期二起，那是我大学期末考试结束后的几天），它成为了我整个职业生涯的在线家园。一直以来，我都在创作内容并记录我当时参与的各种项目和兴趣，这使它变成了一个个人的时间胶囊。

All of which makes this feel like the right moment to stop and look back at the archived history of this site, my online presence and tech trends that have come and gone. This is going to be a bit of a long (and sometimes embarrassing) one, but I think I’ve earned a little indulgence! 这一切让我觉得现在是停下来回顾这个网站存档历史、我的在线足迹以及那些来来去去的科技趋势的最佳时机。这篇文章可能会有点长（有时甚至会让人尴尬），但我认为我值得一点小小的放纵！

Firstly: No, I’m not going to mention AI. That’s a topic for another day. Secondly: I have spent a lot of time putting this article together, digging out the old screenshots and trying to make sure my memories align with the correct events. But bear in mind this is a look back over many decades of personal, website and tech history - so it’s possible my recollections may be a bit off. Friendly corrections welcome! 首先：不，我不会提到 AI。那是改天再聊的话题。其次：我花了很多时间整理这篇文章，挖掘旧的截图，并努力确保我的记忆与实际事件相符。但请记住，这是对过去几十年个人、网站和科技历史的回顾——所以我的记忆可能会有偏差。欢迎友善的指正！

From Cassettes To The Cloud / 从磁带到云端

When I do stop and think about how much the world has changed, and what we now for take for granted, it really sinks in. I first started writing code about 40 years ago, with my first home computer - a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. I can remember exactly the first program I typed in, as I still have the manual. 当我停下来思考世界发生了多大的变化，以及我们现在认为理所当然的事物时，感触真的很深。我大约在 40 年前开始编写代码，使用的是我的第一台家用电脑——Sinclair ZX Spectrum。我清楚地记得我输入的第一段程序，因为我至今还保留着那本手册。

To put things into perspective, here’s the juxtaposition of what my first lines of code would have looked like - typed carefully into a squishy rubber keyboard plugged into the family TV - alongside my current 2026 Ruby On Rails dev setup and my latest project: 为了让大家有个直观的对比，这里展示了我最初编写的代码——小心翼翼地敲入连接在家庭电视上的软橡胶键盘中——与我目前 2026 年的 Ruby On Rails 开发环境及最新项目的对比：

In my lifetime so far, I’ve gone from an 8-bit 3.5Mhz computer with 48KB memory, to my current laptop (Apple MacBook Pro) that has nearly 400 thousand times the memory and runs millions of times faster. And that’s just my laptop - Looking around my homelab, one of my refurbished systems (an old HP workstation) has 112 threads at 2Ghz and 1TB memory! 在我迄今为止的人生中，我从一台 8 位 3.5Mhz、48KB 内存的计算机，进化到了现在拥有近 40 万倍内存、运行速度快数百万倍的笔记本电脑（Apple MacBook Pro）。这还仅仅是我的笔记本电脑——环顾我的家庭实验室，我的一台翻新系统（一台旧的 HP 工作站）拥有 112 个线程、2Ghz 主频和 1TB 内存！

I’ve gone from a 1,200 baud modem calling BBSes to gigabit fibre internet; from cassette tapes and floppy disks to NVMe drives for storage; and from being the only kid in my street with a computer to genuinely losing count of the number of devices I own that qualify for that term. Phones, personal and work laptops, tablets, old devices sitting in the back of a drawer, “smart” TVs, Raspberry Pis… Not to mention my old retro systems I still have. 我经历了从 1,200 波特率的调制解调器拨号连接 BBS，到千兆光纤互联网的变迁；从磁带和软盘到 NVMe 固态硬盘的存储升级；从街上唯一拥有电脑的孩子，到如今多到数不清的各种设备。手机、个人和工作笔记本电脑、平板电脑、抽屉深处的旧设备、“智能”电视、树莓派……更不用说我依然保留的那些复古系统了。

A Different Kind Of Soundtrack / 另一种原声带

Because computers became such an important part of my life (and frankly, something of a refuge as I was growing up), I find that, much as certain songs pin me to a particular moment, a single piece of technology can catapult me instantly back in time. It’s like another kind of soundtrack to my life: 因为计算机成为了我生活中如此重要的一部分（坦白说，在我成长过程中，它们也是一种避难所），我发现，就像某些歌曲能让我瞬间回到特定的时刻一样，一件特定的科技产品也能让我瞬间穿越回过去。这就像是我人生的另一种原声带：

I see an Acorn Archimedes RISC OS desktop, and suddenly I’m right back in the school “design & technology” labs - smelling of sawdust and glue guns - at lunchtime, because I understand computers more than I do people. 看到 Acorn Archimedes RISC OS 的桌面，我仿佛瞬间回到了学校的“设计与技术”实验室——午餐时间，空气中弥漫着木屑和热熔胶枪的味道——因为那时我比理解人更理解计算机。

I hear an old chip tune or see an Amiga cracktro, and I’m in the basement of my mum’s house, an awkward teenager staying up way beyond my bedtime writing letters and swapping floppy disks with contacts in the underground demo/cracking scene. 听到一段古老的芯片音乐或看到一个 Amiga 破解动画（cracktro），我就回到了母亲家的地下室，作为一个笨拙的少年，熬夜写信并与地下演示/破解圈的联系人交换软盘。

I see a late ’90s pimped-out Linux desktop (Enlightenment Blue Steel, anyone?) and I’m sat up in my student digs, trying to work out where I’m going in life, breaking my new Linux install for like the 20th time. 看到 90 年代末那种花哨的 Linux 桌面（有人记得 Enlightenment Blue Steel 吗？），我就回到了学生宿舍，坐在那里思考人生的方向，顺便第 20 次搞崩了我的 Linux 系统。

As this site and it’s predecessor have been online since the late 90s, I’ve seen tech trends come and go and have worked on some really fun stuff. Thanks to archive.org and my own snapshots and backups, I’ve managed to go back through the years and build up a timeline of all the different technology eras. It’s kind of a “Website CV” and tour through the technolgies and cultures of the day, starting from my first dabblings in hand-crafted HTML to the modern cloud-native world. It’s brought back a lot of memories as well as some decidedly cringy photos and website design… 由于本网站及其前身自 90 年代末以来一直在线，我见证了科技趋势的兴衰，并参与了一些非常有趣的工作。多亏了 archive.org 以及我自己的快照和备份，我得以回顾过去，建立了一个涵盖不同技术时代的时间轴。这就像是一份“网站简历”，带你领略当年的技术与文化，从我最初手工编写 HTML 的尝试，一直到现代云原生世界。它勾起了许多回忆，也带来了一些绝对令人尴尬的照片和网页设计……

But first… Pre-History / 但首先……史前时期

My digital footprints extend even further back: As well as getting me started on my computing journey, my very first computer also established my first pre-internet on-line presence. Fuelled by endless re-watchings of War Games, I’d become aware of the then-burgeoning BBS scene and I eventually saved up and bought this bad boy: 我的数字足迹甚至可以追溯得更远：我的第一台计算机不仅开启了我的计算之旅，还建立了我在互联网普及之前的首次在线存在。在无数次重温电影《战争游戏》（War Games）的激励下，我开始关注当时方兴未艾的 BBS 圈子，最终攒钱买下了这个大家伙：

Connected to my 8-bit computer, I got to experience a connection speed of around 0.0012 Megabits/Second in today’s terms! In our modern always-on, always-connected world where we’re tethered to the Internet 24/7, it’s hard to put into words how different the home computing scene was back then. 连接到我的 8 位计算机上，我体验到了以今天标准衡量约为 0.0012 Mbps 的连接速度！在我们这个 24/7 全天候在线、时刻连接的现代世界里，很难用言语来形容当时的家庭计算环境有多么不同。

Each computer was it’s own little island, and data transfer was usually carried out by copying tapes (and later floppy disks) and swapping them in the school yard. With a modem, I got to explore the local BBS scene and was the first time I experienced that feeling of being connected to actual real-life people across the void, albeit with identities closely guarded behind cryptic handles. I’ve even found old archives of these BBS systems from back then and a few of my old logins still even work! My own TNFS Site is one of my recent projects that aims to re-create that magic. 每一台计算机都是一座孤岛，数据传输通常是通过复制磁带（后来是软盘）并在操场上交换来完成的。有了调制解调器，我得以探索当地的 BBS 圈子，那是我第一次体验到跨越虚空与现实中的人建立连接的感觉，尽管大家的身份都隐藏在神秘的网名之后。我甚至找到了当时这些 BBS 系统的旧存档，我的一些旧账号竟然还能用！我自己的 TNFS 网站就是我最近的项目之一，旨在重现那种魔力。