Online
Regarding the Price list, Dean has been preparing for half a month. It's not how difficult this website is, but purely because he doesn't have time.
In order to reverse the phone card and run around for his father's case, he spent most of his time on these things.
It was only last night that he concentrated on finishing the final code.
Oh, by the way, after moving back home this week, Dean bought a second-hand Commaoda computer for himself in the thrift market.
This Commodore64 series computer cost him $80. It was an old antique produced in 1982 and sold for $595 at that time.
Although it is a product a few years ago, it is still on sale until today, and the sales volume has reached about 20 million units as of today.
In the geek circle, the Commaoda 64 computer is known as the "Volkswagen" in the computer.
And although it has a history of five or six years, it is much better in performance than Jerry's Tandy-80. After all, the Tandy-80 is also known as Garbage-80.
Opening the computer on the desk, Dean excitedly converted the web content of the Price list into the email in PERL language.
As the first users of the website, Dean pushed them to his friends in his email list.
Jerry, Debbie, Roger, Susie in the landlord training course, and the landlords who have registered rental information, and of course, the friends he made in the geek circle.
There are about 20 people in total. They are the first targets of Price List push service, which is also the first time that Dean took the initiative to advertise his website.
...
Debbie, who was using a computer to browse BBS at a friend's house during the holiday, noticed the reminder of the new email in the mailbox at first sight.
After opening the mailbox and finding that it was Dean, Debbie immediately excitedly greeted her best friend in the room to share the email together.
"Here is an interesting new website. Do you want to have a look together?"
"What?" "What kind of website?" Several girls began to get together.
"Look" Debbie clicked on the email, and the content on it was very simple.
[Yangstown State University will hold a campus star rock competition in January]
[The newly opened EastDumpling Chinese restaurant in the south of the city is cheap and delicious!]
[Democratic lawmakers claim that they are applying for more public housing projects for Youngstown]
[A vicious shooting occurred on Xihai Street in the east of the city, and at least one African-American youth died according to witnesses]
...
A short message is listed in the email in the form of very concise plain text.
"Cool, is this a BBS that specializes in news?" Her best friend took it for granted that this was a news forum.
"No, it's different from ordinary BBS. It's more organized and has more services." With that, Debbie clicked the URL link below the email with the mouse.
Pricelist.org - This is the home page of Price List. What I just pushed in the email is just the information extracted from the website.
With the jump of the web page, a new page was soon displayed in front of everyone.
The whole web page is roughly divided into three sections from left to right. The background of the page is pure white and the content text is blue.
At the top of the leftmost section is the large blue title of Pricelist, and below is several small function modules such as account login, in-site search, and event calendar.
The main space of the web page is the middle section, the top is the city name Youngstown, and the bottom is the community, housing, service, work, discussion forum, market and other secondary directories.
There are various sub-categories below them, such as local news, lost and found, community organizations and other items under the community, and apartment rental, rent, garage/warehouse and other related entries under the house.
After clicking in, you can see various theme links posted by others, such as apartment rental, which is also the most published theme links in the Price list.
Debbie knew that the most informative section of Dean's website was housing, so she tacitly showed her friends the catalogue of apartment rental.
After seeing the page jump, there was a lot of rental information about Youngstown, and several of her best friends were stunned.
"Oh, my God, this is amazing. There is a special website to see where there is a suitable apartment in Youngstown?
"Look at Debbie! There was a picture in the rental link just now. A girlfriend pointed to the computer screen and shouted excitedly.
Although the Internet speed of the United States is touching, compressing the picture and loading the website for more than ten seconds can still show it in front of the viewer.
Of course, because few people use Price List now, Debby opened it a little faster, about 8 seconds.
The picture of the apartment is very blurry, and it can only see a general outline of the outside, but it still makes everyone excited.
The uniform text code of BBS has long lowered everyone's expectations for the Internet.
Now when I first see a colorful picture, it's as exciting as being suddenly served a steak after eating black bread for a month.
However, there is very little rental information with pictures. Dean tries his best to keep the page displayed in plain text.
In particular, the homepage of the Price List does not even have a logo, and all information is displayed in the form of text.
The main purpose of this is to load the web page as fast as possible. In the era of dial-up Internet access, you can't expect too much from the network speed.
Second, there is no network server in the current Price list, and Dean's Commaoda 64 temporarily serves as this responsibility.
For this old antique, it obviously can't withstand the visits of too many people at the same time.
Therefore, simplicity and simplicity as much as possible is the first consideration when Dean designs the homepage of the Price list.
However, although the web page is simple, it is also displayed in the form of pure text. But all the information is well arranged, and everyone knows how to use it at the first glance when entering the web page.
Find the category you want to know, perform a more accurate directory screening below, and then click in.
After clicking in, you will find that there is a new world in it, where you can have all kinds of interactions.
"Debby, this web page is really great. It even has lost and found! I lost a bean doll last week, which was my eighth birthday present and stayed with me for many years.
Can I register a search notice about it on this website now? Debbie's best friend immediately asked after seeing the directory under the community service column.
"Of course, look," Debbie's hands-on demonstration, "if we want to publish our own information, it's better to register an account. In this way, after someone picks up your bean doll, they can leave a message to contact you under the information you posted.
Click on the column to open the account registration, Debbie filled in the account number and password and clicked Send. In Dean's room two blocks away, his computer mailbox showed that someone was applying for an account.
"Hey, you guys are doing a good job. Someone registered so soon." Click on the mailbox casually. After Dean opens the corresponding account and password, the last step of registering the account is completed.
Yes, everything is in the original stage now. Even the account registration is manually audited by Dean in the background.
When the number of people on the Price list did not reach a certain scale, Dean was ready to do so. The first is to save operating expenses, and the second is to facilitate his access to first-hand data.
"Benny, just look at this." After receiving the email reminder of successful registration, Debbie immediately logged in to the account.
"Now you can publish your own information in the corresponding directory. And it's all free~"
"Oh~shit! Debbie said it was free? If I find my bean doll through the search notice, is it also free?
"Of course!"
"Come on, Debbie, I'm going to try it now. I can't wait!" Benny is looking forward to seeing and leaving a message.
Looking at her eager appearance, Debbie's face was a little proud and reservedly got out of her position.
Showing interesting things to her best friends and watching them shout at the novelty functions satisfied her little vanity.
"Debby, this website called Price List is really great. I will definitely recommend it to other friends around me."
"Good! We should let more people know about this free service website. Debbie's head is looming with the aura of the Virgin Mary.
...
"Oh~shit, this guy really made a website." Roger looked at Dean's email in his bedroom and couldn't help admiring.
After clicking on the link, he went in for a while and found that the website was indeed a little interesting, but it was too formal.
Roger saw a lot of life-related information services, car repair, transportation, etc., and even a place dedicated to dealing with idle things at home.
But there is no service for the other half at all. That's right, it's the kind of heterosexual dating module.
Thinking of this, Roger opened the mailbox and typed a line: Dean, there is no fucking girl's service on this page?!
Ti! In a minute, Dean's reply came.
Roger clicked to have a look: F*ckYou, Roger!
...
He raised his middle finger fiercely at the guy who was in the brain, and Dean happily continued to process the account application email in the mailbox.
In less than an afternoon, he received 10 account registration emails. Although many of them are Dean's friends, at least this is a good start.
However, Roger's heterosexual dating column proposed that he could not have a try.
Dean is very clear that Yellow has always been the primary productivity of mankind.
At present, there is still too little information that can be viewed on the Price list page. Only when users participate in the interaction can this service-oriented classification website make the number of website views grow in a healthy trend.
Making friends with the opposite sex in the same city is definitely a hot topic, but there are many uncontrollable factors, such as some people recruit prostitutes under the guise of making friends...
The website has just been launched, and the comments are very important. Dean decided to at least attract some users in Youngstown before trying Roger's proposal.
If there is a voice of criticism, at worst, just close it again.
After slightly filtering the ideas in his mind, Dean once again buried himself in many BBS to filter the local information that would be displayed on the Price list.
Yes, the various services and local news on the current Price list are manually screened.
This part of the work is mainly done by Debbie, Jerry and Roger, who will summarize the recent events in Youngstown to Dean.
The information source may be community gossip or online forums. In short, the Price list does not produce news. It is just a porter of nature.
At most, Dean does some manual editing work when screening.
Of course, this is just a stop-by measure at present. Dean is writing another software. It will automatically grab the hottest posts from the US network and then feed them back to the background.
These captured posts will be submitted to Debbie and others for review. Only when they find interesting or reliable information will Dean edit it to the Price list.
Everything has just begun. There is no server and no operator. Most of the work is done manually.
But at the end of 1988, Price List was still a network invention full of innovation.