Someone showed me a (so called) “long lost screenshot of the beta version of the Scratch website.” He/she said that the screenshots were never supposed to be shown to the public and were used for website design testing before the website was created. He/she claimed to have found it “hidden in the code of the old website” using Internet Archive. The date of the screenshot is 2/14/2004, so he/she said “it's an opportunity to see what the Scratch website was meant to look like in the early days.” I'm not sure if this is real. What do you think?

Looks real to me!
And looking a the oldest Web Archive of Scratch, it looks believable!

nope

Hmm… it looks kind of real, but it seems quite weird that it was found after all these years. Tell you what:

if <(pick random (1) to (2)) = [1]> then
broadcast [It's real]
end

Did you get that? I have no idea if that would work or not when I wrote it. Forum's kind of new to me. However, I'd say the chance of it being real or fake is about fifty-fifty.


Edit: I wrote this before I saw Legomaniac04's comment.

Pengufenhoffer wrote:

Hmm… it looks kind of real, but it seems quite weird that it was found after all these years. Tell you what:

if <(pick random (1) to (2)) = [1]> then
broadcast [It's real]
end

Did you get that? I have no idea if that would work or not when I wrote it. Forum's kind of new to me. However, I'd say the chance of it being real or fake is about fifty-fifty.

I agree. Why would it have been found in 2019 when the screenshot says it's from 15 years ago?

Guys, it's an EXTREMELY obvious fake. I'm not sure how you didn't catch that. Here are the things that allowed me to come to this conclusion very fast:

1. The titlebar. The fonts of the text “Scratch Website” and the text “Microsoft Internet Explorer” are both different.
   
2. All the weird fonts and the overall very amateurish design of the supposed page. Why are there two fonts being used when the real snapshot has a much more clean/professional design and more consistency in its fonts?
   
3. The screen resolution, which is 1366x768. Nobody, and I repeat, NOBODY was using 16:9 screens in 2004. 16:10 screens had barely come out at that point, the most popular aspect ratio was still 4:3, with 5:4 also being up there.
   
4. The resolution of some of the fonts. Zoom in and you can see that the Windows-generated text looks quite pixelated, but the fonts on this supposed web page are sharp and clear.
   
5. The lack of a address bar, menu bar, tool bar, and status bar in the supposed IE window.
   
6. The icons in the system tray. This screenshot was supposedly taken in 2004, but you can see a VirtualBox VM Additions icon in the system tray. And when was VirtualBox released? 2007. FAIL.
   

Don't fall for fake images! Look closely for little inconsistencies like this when you look at images on the Web

Flowermanvista wrote:

Guys, it's an EXTREMELY obvious fake. I'm not sure how you didn't catch that. Here are the things that allowed me to come to this conclusion very fast:

1. The titlebar. The fonts of the text “Scratch Website” and the text “Microsoft Internet Explorer” are both different.
   
2. All the weird fonts and the overall very amateurish design of the supposed page. Why are there two fonts being used when the real snapshot has a much more clean/professional design and more consistency in its fonts?
   
3. The screen resolution, which is 1366x768. Nobody, and I repeat, NOBODY was using 16:9 screens in 2004. 16:10 screens had barely come out at that point, the most popular aspect ratio was still 4:3, with 5:4 also being up there.
   
4. The resolution of some of the fonts. Zoom in and you can see that the Windows-generated text looks quite pixelated, but the fonts on this supposed web page are sharp and clear.
   
5. The lack of a address bar, menu bar, tool bar, and status bar in the supposed IE window.
   
6. The icons in the system tray. This screenshot was supposedly taken in 2004, but you can see a VirtualBox VM Additions icon in the system tray. And when was VirtualBox released? 2007. FAIL.
   

Don't fall for fake images! Look closely for little inconsistencies like this when you look at images on the Web

Yeah. I'm also starting to think that it was made using PowerPoint (slideshow maker), with images from the internet. Whoever did it probably took a screenshot when it was in Presentation Mode.

Flowermanvista wrote:

Guys, it's an EXTREMELY obvious fake. I'm not sure how you didn't catch that. Here are the things that allowed me to come to this conclusion very fast:

-snip-

Don't fall for fake images! Look closely for little inconsistencies like this when you look at images on the Web.

I agree with you, but the picture below is the real old Scratch:

It's obviously fake for so many reasons I can't list into one post.

Now that we know that the “screenshot” you showed is super fake, here's what the Scratch website really looked like back in the day:

The oldest archive we have of the Scratch website in it's current URL (scratch.mit.edu) is from September 6, 2006, showing the old, static page version of the website which lacks a ton of functionality we have today, such as any sort of community tools (you couldn't share projects on the site yet). That website would've been in a later beta stage before it was released on January 8, 2007. The first record we have of the Scratch website in a community based format like what we have today dates back to March 15, 2007.

However, there was a Scratch website prior to the scratch.mit.edu domain. The very earliest mention of Scratch I could find was on the LLK's old website with an archive that dates back to November 2nd, 2002 (The LLK website at the time is also pretty interesting if you want to enjoy some turn of the century web design), which is before even the first build of Scratch that we have a copy of (Scratch 0.1, dating to around February 2003 from what I remember February 14, 2004). Another thing to note is the Scratch logo they use on that old LLK page - It's completely different from any logo we currently have, yet it seems like it wasn't a placeholder at one point, and it seems that it was changed by the time the Scratch 0.1 build that we have access to was created. Personally, I think it was just a random image from the very early stages of Scratch's development.

On later archives of that Scratch summary page, there is a link to a “Scratch Site”, and the first archive of this Scratch site is from January 11, 2004. These two pages are completely different from even the Scratch page from 2006, let alone the 1.x community website or the website we have today. The Jan 2004 page isn't recognisable to any current or past web design of Scratch that we know of - it's simply one page of pink text on a purple background with a multi colored logo - not very contrasting. This is the first page of Scratch that has any real identification that this is Scratch we all know by the screenshots of a Scratch 0.1 type build, with the page dated June 5, 2004. Scratch's main usage at the time was mentioned to used in a program called Computer Clubhouses, a program running since the late 90s that focuses on giving youth groups in “underserved communities” tools required to create their own animations, games, music and presentations. For extra reading, Mitchel Resnick wrote about the The Computer Clubhouse from a document published all the way back in 1998, and I think it's quite a good document to read for a bit of an idea on how the Scratch project came to be after all the work that they would've done creating multimedia, animations, robots and games to these people. When you look at what they were doing in that program and then look at Scratch, you can draw a lot of parallels between the activities done in The Computer Clubhouse and Scratch's design, ideas and community - Scratch is designed to be a multimedia tool that can be used for the creation of animation, games, robots, music and art. It was designed to encourage people to think of an idea, create it using digital tools and then show it off to their friends, just like how Scratch's motto - Imagine, Program, Share. The Computer Clubhouse was an international operation designed to get people from low income communities, who were excluded from the internet and digital revolution that was going on at the time to create things of their own, which I think was an influence that moved to Scratch, saying that it was a universal tool that could be used by everyone, which leads on to Scratch's Community Guidelines, which mention that Scratch is for everyone.

And then we go full circle back to the 2006 design of the Scratch website, which I started in the first part of this post with this archive of the main Scratch page, dated December 31, 2005. This website is the design that most people associated with being the first Scratch website design, which went on until the release of the aforementioned Scratch 1.x website in March 2007.

Edit: The December 31, 2005 website that I linked used the domain "http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/llk/scratch/", which I assume was done once the Scratch page grew to be more of a dedicated website, rather than just a single page on the LLK website. This domain was used until they switched over to the current URL that we're all familiar with

Subscribe

CatsUnited wrote:

-snip-

Man, that's neat. Thank you for your Scratch archaeological dig.

Flowermanvista wrote:

CatsUnited wrote:

-snip-

Man, that's neat. Thank you for your Scratch archaeological dig.

archive.org is pretty epic.

CatsUnited wrote:

snip

Wow, thanks for finding those pre-2007 Scratch websites! I remember seeing those a few years ago and was never able to find it again.

CatsUnited wrote:

-snip-

I am beyond impressed. Like, wow…
Please, become a Forum Helper.

CatsUnited wrote:

snip

Also, hmm… the “shared projects” part of the site http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/llk/scratch/archives/share_your_projects/index.html appears to have working download links (no web player at this time!)… for .scratch files. As you may or may not know, .scratch is the file format used by Scratch 0.x. Anyone want to have a try of loading one of these files into some of the 0.x builds and see what they do?

dude341 wrote:

CatsUnited wrote:

snip

Also, hmm… the “shared projects” part of the site http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/llk/scratch/archives/share_your_projects/index.html appears to have working download links (no web player at this time!)… for .scratch files. As you may or may not know, .scratch is the file format used by Scratch 0.x. Anyone want to have a try of loading one of these files into some of the 0.x builds and see what they do?

How do you get the 0.x builds?
Edit: Never mind I got it

dude341 wrote:

CatsUnited wrote:

snip

Also, hmm… the “shared projects” part of the site http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/llk/scratch/archives/share_your_projects/index.html appears to have working download links (no web player at this time!)… for .scratch files. As you may or may not know, .scratch is the file format used by Scratch 0.x. Anyone want to have a try of loading one of these files into some of the 0.x builds and see what they do?

Seems interesting

dude341 wrote:

CatsUnited wrote:

snip

Also, hmm… the “shared projects” part of the site http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/llk/scratch/archives/share_your_projects/index.html appears to have working download links (no web player at this time!)… for .scratch files. As you may or may not know, .scratch is the file format used by Scratch 0.x. Anyone want to have a try of loading one of these files into some of the 0.x builds and see what they do?

I'll try that
Edit: There's an error when trying to get to the website.
Another edit: Works now

dude341 wrote:

CatsUnited wrote:

snip

Also, hmm… the “shared projects” part of the site http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/llk/scratch/archives/share_your_projects/index.html appears to have working download links (no web player at this time!)… for .scratch files. As you may or may not know, .scratch is the file format used by Scratch 0.x. Anyone want to have a try of loading one of these files into some of the 0.x builds and see what they do?

Okay sure
Edit: When opening the project in Scratch 0.1, it says “Could not read project: heading error”

Ian-Stewart wrote:

dude341 wrote:

CatsUnited wrote:

snip

Also, hmm… the “shared projects” part of the site http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/llk/scratch/archives/share_your_projects/index.html appears to have working download links (no web player at this time!)… for .scratch files. As you may or may not know, .scratch is the file format used by Scratch 0.x. Anyone want to have a try of loading one of these files into some of the 0.x builds and see what they do?

Okay sure
Edit: When opening the project in Scratch 0.1, it says “Could not read project: heading error”

Try the 0.2 or the pre-1.0 versions.

dude341 wrote:

Ian-Stewart wrote:

dude341 wrote:

CatsUnited wrote:

snip

Also, hmm… the “shared projects” part of the site http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/llk/scratch/archives/share_your_projects/index.html appears to have working download links (no web player at this time!)… for .scratch files. As you may or may not know, .scratch is the file format used by Scratch 0.x. Anyone want to have a try of loading one of these files into some of the 0.x builds and see what they do?

Okay sure
Edit: When opening the project in Scratch 0.1, it says “Could not read project: heading error”

Try the 0.2 or the pre-1.0 versions.

ye bois back at it again

So after installing Scratch 1.4, I decided to start opening some of the download links for the projects using the Scratch 27th July 2006 beta build by pointing the Scratch image file location to the July 2006 build rather than the 1.4 image.

The first project I tested was Snowboard video clip, added on the Scratch projects website on January 31, 2006 by your boy gevue, a project about how he wants to go snowboarding and hopefully not fall off a cliff, or at least that's what I could tell from - the project scripts don't seem to be running correctly, although they've only had a few weeks of experience using an ancient version of Scratch, so I don't blame them.

The next project I tested was Treasure Quest game, by nrusk AKA Danny of Intel Computer Clubhouse of Alamosa, Colorado, which agrees with my previous post “essay” that Scratch was originally designed with the LLK's Computer Clubhouse in mind before it was expanded globally. This project was dated June 5, 2006, and it's a pretty well made game, especially for something from 2006 Scratch.

The next project I tested was Bowl of Memories under the name keithb, added onto the Scratch website on November 13, 2005. It's a cool art project consisting of an assortment of items and stories told by people who are now nearly 15 years older than when they created this project. The funny thing about the description of that project on the website reads the following: “scratch used to have more controls available for sound. This seems like it would be helpful to have still, maybe as advance controls or just a ‘edit your sound’ choice”, which reminds me of something that happened on Scratch a lot more recently.

The last project I'll be showcasing is Dance Turntable from October 21, 2005, which is a group of projects under Make a dance, which were also in the Examples folder of Scratch. The project didn't seem to be functioning correctly in the July 2006 build, and I noticed some blocks that had the red undefined color given to them, yet they still retained their old block name. The error was being caused by the old graphic effect blocks (color, whirl, fisheye, ghost) which were all separate blocks in an earlier build of Scratch, but by the July 2006 beta they had been replaced with the single graphic effect block that we're familiar with today. That was what I thought was happening at least, so I went back to the latest public build that still used the old graphic blocks (the March 14 2005 build), however the dance turntable project failed to load with a “bad header”. My belief with this project is that it was created using a build of Scratch that never made it to the public, sometime around mid 2005. Maybe one of the OG Scratch Team members still has a copy of this missing build, or I could just be doing something wrong and we have all the builds of Scratch that the ST have kept.

Speculation
The oldest project that we can publicly access on the Scratch website now is Weekend by andresmh, which has a project ID of 104. I think that these projects may potentially be part of the list of the 103 projects on Scratch that preceded Weekend. I was going to conduct more testing, but archive.org is down now (which shows how long it took for me to write this post) so rip.