Ask HN: Were playing web videos without Adobe Flash possible before HTML5?

Re:Ask HN: Were playing web videos without Adobe Flash possi... by solardev on Saturday December 21, 2024 @08:09AM (#42479442)

RealPlayer deserves a mention here. Way way way before Flash and others, back in 95, they made streaming video possible over dialup modem (at like 320x240 or lower, 4 or 5 fps or so). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealPlayer

Today it's just some spamware reusing that old trademark, but it was the first popular streaming video implementation on the web.

Before that we mostly had server rendered video frames on a meta refresh timer, like Netscape Fishcam (https://www.fishcam.com/). Netscape was the commercial predecessor to Mozilla, the browser/company that eventually made Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox.

And before that you kinda sorta had ASCII graphics, sometimes with color, sent over direct modem connections to your local BBS. (And Gopher was in there somewhere in between)

I feel old.

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Re:Ask HN: Were playing web videos without Adobe Flash possi... by thesuperbigfrog on Saturday December 21, 2024 @02:19PM (#42481582)

>> And before that you kinda sorta had ASCII graphics, sometimes with color, sent over direct modem connections to your local BBS.

Brings back fond memories playing Trade Wars 2002 on a favorite BBS.

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