The IndieWeb Atlas
Digital Museums
The internet has ignited preservation efforts across all sorts of fields - people who really care about cataloguing any niche subject can do so on the web, without the sort of old-money seed funding most physical museums need to get started. The links on this page will take you to collections of diverse kinds; some you'll find fascinating, others you'll no doubt find strange.
Contents: Media & The Internet, The Material World
Media & The Internet
Home to the Wayback Machine, which allows you to see snapshots of websites as they were in the past. Also home to a truly incredible media library, full of books, images, newspaper clippings, videos, music, software, and more. I must put this one at the top because it's just so incredible.
An extensive collection of assets in the style of Frutiger Aero, which you may remember as "that fun 2000s Windows OS aesthetic". Includes wallpapers, music, video, history, and other media related to Frutiger Aero.
Allows you to watch TV and commercials from the 20th century, using interfaces resembling televisions typical of the chosen decade. Contains thousands of clips across five decades of television.
Recreates old operating systems and software in your browser.
The Winamp Skin Museum showcases an uncountable number of Winamp skins, and resources to use Winamp yourself. You can even use the winamp skins right there in the museum (although the song list is limited).
A wiki-style collection of cut content found in the data of videogames. Decades of easter eggs, missing levels, unusued animations, and never-before-heard music are archived here.
A wiki-style collection of information of lost media - movies, music, TV commercials, video games, footage of real life events, and much more. This website has a vibrant and active community investigating these lost pieces of media, and they've found quite a few!
A living, interactive museum meant to preserve both the websites and the experience of the 1990s internet.
Netscape Infocenter and Archive
A wealth of information on one of the first web browsers. Note: At time of writing, this website is undergoing renovations and several sections are not working. Unsure if it is active or not. Will be keeping an eye on it.
An archive of abandonware for old Macintosh systems, including both games and software. There are quite a few of these old software archives and I may add more as I find them.
Although the larger EVOLT site closed down in 2024, they continue to maintain an archive of old web browsers that you can download straight from the site.
An archive preserving flash games and animations. Currently has over 200,000!
Thousands of cursor skins for download.
Windows Meadia Player Skins Archive
Exactly what it sounds like - a collection of old WMP skins for download.
The Material World
A museum of sounds made by all sorts of objects, especially old and obsolete ones that people may never otherwise hear.
Something of a museum of optical illusions, curated by psychology professor Kitaoka Akiyoshi. Even just the ones on the front page are mind-blowing (I got to "uzumaki anpan" and just about lost it), but there are hundreds more to explore.
Started in 1997 and still going into 2025, the Calculator Reference has put more thought into calculators than I think I ever have. It's truly one of the things I love about the internet - finding these spaces where someone cares SO MUCH about a topic I never gave attention to.
Last updated in 2002, a list of respected Japanese kite artisans. Yes, kites, like the things you fly when there's a nice breeze. There's something about this site that makes me emotional, but I can't quite put my finger on what.
A very nerdy, very interesting collection of information, photos, and media snippets of real robots from decades past.
A truly incredible 3D recreation of the capital of the Aztec empire, including historical information and before-and-after sliders to compare views with present-day Mexico City.
Experience the Apollo missions, as they happened, in real time. Honestly, I'm getting emotional just knowing this exists.
It's everything you've ever wanted to know about every(?) skyscraper in the world.
Thousands of old, forgotten books.