In 1997, Macromedia Flash was in it’s infancy. Almost no one was doing anything really cool with it. Notice I said, almost. There was one site that was head and shoulders above anything, anyone had ever done. It was a site that would raise the bar for web designers everywhere. It would inspire an entire generation of Flash users. It was arguably the first great Flash site ever made.
Do you remember the site? It was called Gabocorp.
By today’s standards, Gabocorp wouldn’t look all that impressive. But at the time, it totally blew our minds. Designers everywhere huddled around their computers in awe and amazement. They had never seen anything like it on the internet.
If you’ve never seen Gabocorp, or you just want to relive that 1997 moment, you’re in luck. The FWA has managed to track down a semi-functional copy of that original site, and put it back online.
Found via Airtight Interactive
i remember huddling around a computer with you looking at this very thing, although it was a little bit simpler when we first saw it – and it had a disclaimer screen that said “We are too busy to accept any new work now.” I always wondered if that was a hype-building scam. Sure, they are SO BUSY they can’t even talk to anyone – so the really deep pockets would step up and pay any price to get at them… maybe they had done nothing yet, but a great Flash site?
I can agree that I can vividly remember trying to download/copy all of the Netscape 4 cache files from my hard drive so I could save this Flash masterpiece and I actually managed to pull it off. At the time, it wasn’t the zippiest Flash site, but it was MESMERIZING!!! Thank for the reminder!