The internet was young once.
So were we.
Turn the dial to any year from 1980 to 2009. Watch the web appear, see what played on the radio, what aired on TV and what a gallon of gas cost.
Explore
Retro TV
Flip through real commercials, theme songs, cartoons, #1 music videos and early YouTube from the 80s, 90s and 2000s — on a live schedule.
Internet History
From the first ARPANET message in 1969 to Bitcoin in 2009: 59 moments that built the internet, each one sourced.
The First 100 .coms
symbolics.com was first, in March 1985. Here are all 100 of the earliest .com domains, checked against the live registry.
Born On…
Type any date. See the #1 song, the top 10, and what everything cost the week you were born.
What It Cost
Eggs, gas, bread, a stamp, a house. Pick a year and compare it with today, adjusted for inflation.
Guess the Year
A new puzzle every day. Read the clues, guess the year, share your score.
Why this site exists
In March 1985 there was exactly one .com domain. By the end of that year there were six. The first web page didn't go live until December 1990, and in the summer of 1994 you could have visited every website in existence in a long weekend — there were fewer than 3,000.
InterStalgia is a record of that stretch of time: the decades when the internet was being invented, and the TV, music and prices of the people who grew up alongside it. Every date and number here comes from a source you can check.
Jump to a year
198019811982198319841985198619871988198919901991199219931994199519961997199819992000200120022003200420052006200720082009
This week, 30 years ago
One email a week: what topped the charts, what things cost, and a commercial you forgot you remembered.
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