Shoutout to my friend who told me to stop trying to fix my old site's broken frames

I spent like three weeks trying to get the frames on my 1998 fan site to work on modern browsers. My friend Mark, who ran a BBS back in the day, kept saying 'just let it be broken, it's part of the charm.' I finally gave up and left the 'This page uses frames' error message up. Now I realize he was totally right. The broken layout with that old error is a perfect time capsule. It feels more authentic than if I'd forced it to work. Has anyone else decided to preserve a glitch instead of fixing it?

2 comments

2 Comments

simon_davis1mo ago

Completely understand your choice. I fought a similar battle with an old guestbook script that kept breaking. After the third rebuild, I realized the charm was in those broken bits showing its age. Your friend Mark had the right idea. Sometimes the flaws tell the story better than a perfect restoration ever could. That error message is a little piece of internet history now.

johnson.adam1mo ago

It's like keeping the patina on an antique instead of polishing it to look new.

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