When a web site is linked from the tech news site Slashdot it’s not uncommon for the resulting traffic to bring the host server to a crawl, or in a worst case scenario, to it’s knees. Even the most high-powered redundant servers are susceptible to being overcome by too many simultaneous attempts to access their content. When a webmaster says “I’ve been slashdotted” there may be some pride in their voice, but more likely they’ve spent the day trying to keep their web server online and responding at least in some manner until the traffic dies down and things return to some semblance of normalcy.
You may be aware of my Color Classic Web Server project that I launched in July of 2004 on the anniversary of the Apollo moon landing (that was coincidence, not forethought). This trusty, cute computer that was released before most of the world knew there was an internet is now serving web pages 24 hours a day, 365 days a year from my home at http:///colorclassic.com and generally gets 4 or 5 hits a day as a result of google searches.
Last Wednesday I received an email from a fellow asking for details about how I prepared my Color Classic to be a web server. That’s not unusual – I get a few of these informational requests a year and always enjoy helping other Classic Mac owners with setting up their machines to serve web pages. But this email started with “Now that you have been found by Macintouch, I guess this morning has been a bit busy!”
I jumped over to Macintouch to see if my humble Color Classic was linked from Ric Ford’s longtime Macintosh news and troubleshooting advice site. At the bottom of the news page for August 3 I found this reference:
If you need proof that old Macs never die, consider the 68K Macintosh Web Server Directory, which lists web sites powered by 680×0 Macs ranging from the Quadra 950 (33 MHz 68040) down to a floppy disk-based Mac Plus (8 MHz 68000).
Well, my Color Classic happens to be the third server listed on this page, and my heart leaped as I first wondered if traffic was indeed a little higher than normal. Then I worried that if traffic was too high the Color Classic might freeze or stop responding. I quickly typed http://www.colorclassic.com in my web browser, and though the page took several seconds to load completely, it was there. My 16 MHz marvel of 1993 engineering was up and running! How many people had been there already? I use the free service from ExtremeTracking.com to track visitors to the Color Classic. Around lunchtime 152 people had loaded the main site page in their browser, and by the end of the day the number had climbed to 248.
See a spike in traffic in the log of visitors to the Color Classic Web Server?
When I got home I noticed that the activity bar in MacHTTP was solid black and the server had indeed been forced to refuse some connections because it was too busy. But it never went down and I could see fresh activity scrolling by in the activity log as I watched. Check out the Story of the Color Classic Web Server if you’d like to learn more about the Color Classic and find links to information about how to make your own.
