Ancient Web: Philip Banks Built a Personal Web Fortress for Acorn Files
Philip R. Banks's Web Fort Khantazi turns a personal homepage into a fictional fortress containing Acorn RISC OS programs, Java applets, poetry, anime notes and technical archives.
Part of the Ancient Web Collection.
Most personal homepages greet visitors with a picture and a list of hobbies. Web Fort Khantazi greets them with an automated sentry speaking through the rain.
Its creator, Philip R. Banks, made his interests into the rooms of a fictional defensive installation. The entrance describes armored doors, color-coded corridors, robotic workers, and a notice board. Visitors can travel to an Information Desk, Recreation Level, Power Complex, Transport Centre, or Archives.
The site is not a game in the conventional sense. Its fiction is the navigation system.
The fort guards somebody's actual work
Banks explains the idea on the Why a Web Fort? page. A homepage is a way to look into its author's mind, he writes, so he chose a fortress partly to control which parts strangers could explore. He also connects the design to Wellington, New Zealand, a harbor city with a real fort overlooking it.
The metaphor allows deliberate detours. Banks wanted visitors to wander through adjacent interests rather than land on one search-optimized page. He also deliberately kept graphics limited for readers on modem connections like his own.
The Archives are a splendid example of what those corridors hide. They link to programs Banks developed for Acorn RISC OS, Java applets with source code, scanned photographs used as desktop backdrops, a guide to ARM processor families, and a catalogue of Acorn computers. There are even illustrated repair notes for a Ford Ka.
The Recreation Level branches into anime, books, music, films, photography, poems, stories, and Starsiege: Tribes. An archive of MoodSwings album notes resembles an opinionated personal CD shelf.
A historic link list in the site's help pages includes year indexes extending through the 1990s and 2000s. Those old entries, the Acorn software references, and the explanation about modem load times are stronger evidence of period character than the mere appearance of a stylized fantasy doorway.
This is a homepage that makes browsing an act of exploration. The author's software, photographs, and opinions are still sitting in their imaginary rooms, awaiting a stranger willing to follow the colored stripe down the corridor.
Explore the fortress entrance and its RISC OS and document archive.
Part of the Ancient Web Collection.
- Categories: Ancient Web
- Tags: #ancientweb, #personalweb, #webhistory, #acorn, #riscos