A trip down memory lane TF websites from the past

[tec]

So before google and chrome or Firefox there was Yahoo and Netscape navigator
from these early days let me to the most influential site in my teens the early days of the net and finding places where you belong and that place was this

More than meets the eyes!

A portal of all the coolest TF websites some may even recognize a few things and names this site let me know al the way back in 97 that I was not the only one with a passion for transforming robots this is the start of well practically everything I done online related to Transformers
hell I still have printouts from this site dating back to 97 its self printed on the schools library dime
It led to BWTF that let to Dewtropilis and that led to all the versions of the Allspark and here we it all starts from this one site
So this is a salute to all the ones still here and to all the ones lost along the way

 

[Sabrblade]

There is one site I remember first stumbling upon after using Ask Jeeves (remember that one?) to search for info about the Tripredacus Council. The search led me to an old fansite called "The Autobot Hall of Leaders". This was a fansite that was very much a product of the early Internet years, using crusty old screencaps and comic panels as its main imagery. It was an info site with personal history information about the most high-ranking Autobots, Decepticons, Maximals, Predacons, and Vehicons (plus Primus and Unicron) from the G1 cartoon, the G1/G2 Marvel comics, the Beast Wars cartoon, and the Beast Machines cartoon.

It's long gone now, as I think it was created on the server of the university that the site's owner attended at the time. But it was a charming, quaint little site full of interesting lore info that, in the pre-Wikipedia days, wasn't readily available on every other fansite.

 

[Sabrblade]

I remember one old TF fan site that wrote unofficial bios for the Beast Wars characters and passed it off as if it were official info. They pretty much tried to make everyone be G1 characters in new bodies. K-9 was Omega Supreme. Rattrap was Kup. Seriously.

Crazy!

Here's an oldy: RoboBase!

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Early Beast Wars ads were full of prototypes that were wildly different from what was on shelves, and I wanted to know if any of the versions on shelves were updated versions (didn't know the term 'running change' yet) or if maybe this thing started earlier than I knew and those weird ones were actually the tail end of something I'd completely missed, or if they were truly unobtainable. So I fired up WebTV and started searching. Okay no I waited for WebTV to load. Waited. Waited. Waited. Waited. Waited. Waited. If you never experienced WebTV you have no idea. It is beyond your imagination. Then I searched. I didn't expect there'd be a community seriously documenting these things, but maybe there might be some information. Did I miss a year of this thing?

Obviously I had a good time, because here I am.

I miss the age of personal sites so much. People did their own thing, and a lot of them did reviews too. Reviewers loved to have a consistent format and criteria they'd use for all their reviews, and it wasn't the same as everyone else's. It was worth checking around. And I didn't need a recommendation algorithm to tell me what to check next. There was a Links page, and the links weren't dead yet.

I miss that internet. I would go back in a heartbeat.

 

[Sabrblade]

Remember Prime Saber's Transformers Page? It was one of the fansites to find out info about the Japanese side of Transformers (even though a lot of it was also based on early-fandom understandings that would later be corrected by Takara themselves).

 

[Sciflyer]

It's interesting because I've always viewed The Allspark as a spiritual successor to a lot of those early sites. I know that we've been around since some of those listed in tec's post, but it continues to feel like there is a through line here - a connection to those early days. It's one of the main reasons why I still love this place, and why it continues to be my "internet home."

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Remember Prime Saber's Transformers Page? It was one of the fansites to find out info about the Japanese side of Transformers (even though a lot of it was also based on early-fandom understandings that would later be corrected by Takara themselves).

Oh yes. I spent a lot of time there and Cobra Island Toys, which not only had pictures of Japanese stuff but scans of the instructions.

 

[Sabrblade]

And of course, there's the granddaddy of them all: alt.toys.transformers, which has archived threads going as far back as the early 90s, and continues to have new posts made to this day.

 

[NovaSaber]

The Obscure Transformers Website is still up: http://s90690880.onlinehome.us/jhiaxus/

The Pre Transformers site is unfortunately not: http://web.archive.org/web/20121021224224/http://1501bc.com/pretf/pretf.html

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Aw man. I checked the Pre Transformers Site just a few years ago.

I'm not surprised when a site I haven't checked in ages is gone, but when I check a site and it's still there, it's easy to think it's safe. This is one of the ones that made it. Nope. The black hole is still hungry.

 

[Sabrblade]

Here's a blast from the past: BeastWars.com!

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

Here's a blast from the past: BeastWars.com!

Wow, better than the last official TF site I saw.

 

[Dvandom]

Yep, a.t.t may be down to three or four regulars plus me posting reviews there, but it's still going.

---Dave

 

[Sabrblade]

I just found the Beast Wars page of Fox Kids's old website, and boy is its description of the show WEIRD! It reads like an old machine translation!

Imagine a long time ago, somewhere in the universe, far from the sun that would later create Earth, an essence came into existence that would birth a race of living robots known as The Transformer®. These robot tribes inhabited the planet Cybertron, a prehistoric Earth. Millenniums have passed and the descendants of world-destroying Transformers known as the Predacons have stolen the ancient artifact, which maps the location of a distant planet, rich with energy. These crystals will provide the Predacons with enough strength to complete their terrifying galactic quest - to conquer Cybertron. Our heroes, the Maximals, have followed the Predacons to Energon to protect Cybertron and the universe from all tyranny.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Cybertron... a prehistoric Earth?

This makes no sense and I am adding it to my concept Beast Wars rewrite immediately.

 

[Sabrblade]

It's just... so utterly bizarre! From start to finish!

Imagine a long time ago, somewhere in the universe, far from the sun that would later create Earth,

The sun created Earth?

an essence came into existence that would birth a race of living robots

Is this a reference to the Primus origin story? It's also scarily close to the opening narration to Armada mentioning a "Unique Digital Entity".

known as The Transformer®.

"Transformers". Plural, not singular.

These robot tribes

"Tribes" is an... interesting choice of word.

inhabited the planet Cybertron, a prehistoric Earth.

LOLwut?

Millenniums have passed

"Millennia", not "millenniums".

and the descendants of world-destroying Transformers known as the Predacons have stolen the ancient artifact

This makes it sound like the Predacons are the "world-destroying Transformers", and that the Predacons' descendants stole the golden disk.

which maps the location of a distant planet, rich with energy. These crystals

Funny how it jumps to the subject of "crystals" when the previous subjects of "a distant planet" and "energy" gave no hint of the existence of any crystals.

will provide the Predacons with enough strength

Heh, screw firepower or cosmic MacGuffins, apparently all one really needs to be the ultimate conqueror is just strength!

to complete their terrifying galactic quest - to conquer Cybertron.

So, conquering Cybertron means the automatic conquest of the whole galaxy?

Our heroes, the Maximals, have followed the Predacons to Energon

Hey, that's the same planet in the comic for the PSX game!

to protect Cybertron and the universe from all tyranny.

Wait, now the whole universe is at stake? I thought the Preds wanted just the galaxy?!

 

[Anonymous X]

Remember that website called (IIRC) Transformers 2001, where a fanfic by someone called Anton Max was illustrated up with 3D rendered images?

 

[Stepwise]

I remember his site. Loved his fanfic, and at that point, I was blown away by some of his art. Haven't looked for any of it in so long. I don't remember that Bumblebee, though. It's a little scary.

Iggy Drouge's site was probably the first one I found when I started going online in college, though. At some point after that I started checking out bwtf and Dvandom's pages, which was followed by spending too much time hanging out on att . . .

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

Wait, now the whole universe is at stake? I thought the Preds wanted just the galaxy?!

Anyway, had to dig a little bit, but one I remember going to once upon a time was Planet Sabretron... and it's still around!

 

[Blot]

One of my first experiences online was finding NTFA and reading all the Transformers Universe profiles. They really made me interested in so many characters.