1998 Shockwave net-art 'The Square Root of -1' revived in browsers via DirPlayer
round · x · 2026-10-16
- Created in 1998 by @atomless and first published as thesquarerootof-1.com in 1999, The Square Root of -1 originally required the Macromedia Director Shockwave plugin.
- Thanks to DirPlayer, the piece now runs natively in modern browsers; the accompanying image shows a grid of generative black-and-white patterns — wireframe geometry, particle spirals, waveforms — classic early generative art.
- A nice example of web archaeology and legacy-software preservation.
More from Fun
- Blogger contrasts Tesla's Roadster secrecy with Apple's recurring supply-chain leaks — lipeng0820 · 2026-10-16
- SF parking officers have better observability than hyperscalers, engineer jokes — jwt0625 · 2026-10-16
- "We'll get robots, flying cars and superintelligence" — Still not GTA 6 tho — alexmacgregor__ · 2026-10-16
- GPT-6 Sol runs a potion shop flawlessly but its reasoning mistakes stock for its own stats — liminal_bardo · 2026-10-16
- Meme mocks Sam Altman's NDA teases: 'We're going to make it rain money' — RollingMeteors · 2026-10-16
- 'clonks': the stonks-style meme spreading through AI Twitter — repligate · 2026-10-16