Phantom-archives: Difference between revisions

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-<![CDATA[
-<p>
-<strong>
-Phantom Archives
-<sup>
-<strong>
-<a href="../zones-index.html">
-Ω
-</a>
-</strong>
-</sup>
-[related: Ear Chasm]
-</strong>
-<br/>
-A digital archiving program launched by
-[[error]]
-(PAT) in 1997. The
-platform was accessed through PAT's revolutionary and aggressively strange ISP
-[[mindvox]]
-and reportedly conceptualized and implemented by
-[[lord-digital]]
-and
-[[phiber-optik]]
-following the
-latter's release from prison in 1995. Phantom Archives (PA) was presented as a kind of digital scrapbooking tool with
-a highly customizable template, oriented largely around the experience of digitized audio and, later,
-video
-<sup>
-</sup>
-. Upon its haphazard beta launch, Phantom Archives (PA) became central in the documentation and
-(relative) popularization of New York-based
-[[no-wave]]
-music, in part due to the overlap
-of the hacking community and musicians exploring experimental R&amp;B, free jazz, post-disco, and early hip-hop.
-</p>
-<p>
-Because of the archival nature of PA, the identity of the user was essentially obscured and was often thought to
-include the entity being archived. Much of the material archived on PA was reportedly created years earlier, including
-some music and imagery dating from the late 1970's and early 1980's. As part of the PA template, users were able to
-choose from a large variety of pre-made 3-D modeled icons
-<sup>
-</sup>
-, title fonts, and a two-color scheme. Pages in
-the PA platform became known as contags - a portmanteau of "content" and "aggregate" - each dedicated to the
-documentation of a particular entity. A banner area topped each PA contag including the contag icon and contag title
-drop shadowed over an auto-desaturated wallpaper image that could be either chosen from a predetermined set or, later,
-directly uploaded by the user.
-</p>
-<p>
-Below the banner area PA featured an infinitely scrolling scrapbook area. The area was gridded in fixed format using
-the two contag colors chosen by the user. On the gridded area users could position an endless selection of six content
-modules, or contmods. These contmods included four created by PAT and two created by outside vendors:
-</p>
-<p>
-PAT Contmods:
-</p>
-<p>
-<ul>
-<li>
-image box (with optional dithering and rudimentary paintbrush capabilities)
-</li>
-<li>
-text box
-<sup>
-</sup>
-(with hyperlynx)
-</li>
-<li>
-video player (can be used for audio with fixed image)
-</li>
-<li>
-timeline (a buggy feature still in beta mode when the platform was abandoned)
-</li>
-</ul>
-</p>
-<p>
-Outside Vendor Contmods:
-</p>
-<p>
-<ul>
-<li>
-photo gallery (pop up feature for viewing a collection of related images, including captions)
-</li>
-<li>
-[[error]]
-™ (an audio player with fashionable assorted skins, user-uploaded artwork,
-pop-up lyric pane including hyperlynx, and various Easter eggs)
-</li>
-</ul>
-</p>
-<p>
-Users were able to arrange their various contmods on the scrapbooking grid as they wished - including an option to
-"funky offset" (tilting the contmod approx 10 degrees in either direction) and "overlay" (having the corners of two
-contmods overlap). The scrapbooking grid scrolled infinitely downward as controlled by a right-pinned gray scrolling
-bar, though an overabundance of content (even without video) led to gargantuan loading times. Users were later able to
-create lynx directly to specific positions in the grid. Although highly functional, the PA platform experienced a
-gaussian decline into disuse throughout the waning years of the millennium due to mismanagement and the reckless
-allocation of the vast majority of PAT's financial resources towards the development of the afore-mentioned 3-D users
-icons and an embeddable, but functionally unusable, video module.
-</p>
-<div class="footnote">
-<p>
-<sup>
-</sup>
-Although video embeds were a defining feature of the PA platform, snail-speed bandwidth's limited video streaming access almost exclusively to patrons of
-[[phiber-optik]]
-and other early cyber cafes with
-[[error]]
-access.
-<br/>
-<sup>
-</sup>
-The icons featured cutting edge technology and 3-D design - creation of the icons alone was thought to have cost PAT over $500,000, contributing to a growing mountain of debt that would eventually squash any efforts at monetizing the platform.
-<br/>
-<sup>
-</sup>
-Caption fields for image and video entries were offered to users as a derivation of the text box contmod.
-</p>
-</div>
-]]>

Revision as of 21:43, 8 March 2024