Zzyzax

Takes you back to the opening page, with the main menu options buttons on the left.

Back

Moves you back to the previous page.

Camera Icon

When you see the camera, you can take a picture! The picture is turned into a postcard which you can email to yourself or a friend!

Radio Icon

Local stations to Petaluma, turn on the radio by clicking on the middle buttons. Turn it off by closing the window or clicking on the left knob. Click on the right knob to toggle the volume.

About Zzyzax

A little of the history of this 30-year-old web site.

Help

Brings up this help window.

Click the Panorama

Stops the rotating panorama so you can move around the shot.

Move around the panorama

Use the up/down/left/right arrow keys on a keyboard, or your finger on a touchscreen, to move around in the picture.

Zoom in/out

Use the "+" and "-" (or [CTRL] and [SHIFT]) keys on a keyboard, or pinch open/closed on a touchscreen.

Exit the panorama

Use the BACK key on the bottom menu to exit (or select another item if in the merchant sites).

Go Forward:

Click on the front windows and you will move forward. Each click gets you ½ block down the street.

Braking:

If you hear the screech of your brakes, it’s because you’ve reached the limits of our virtual tour.

There are 17 spots you can visit (we called them “nodes”). At one point, there were some 29 nodes, but 30 years has taken its toll with 12 nodes lost.

Turn Left/Right:

Click on the left/right window and your car will spin to face that direction. There are eight positions at each node, for a full 360-degree view.

Horn:

Beep! It works.

Radio:

Click on the radio and a window/tab pops up (oh, how we loved our little pop-up windows back then!).

The radio plays stations local to Petaluma, though there are fewer today than there were back in 1996. I found three.

The on/off is just an off button, and the volume gives a few settings for volume.

This part of the car required me to rewrite the javascript code, since sound over the internet was new back then. We used to require the Real-Audio plug-in. Now, it’s all built into the browser.

Glove Box:

Lost :-( Some survived in the next generation, Zzyzax v.2.0.1, where the Guidebook and Points of Interest portions had their birth in the Glove Box.

Camera:

Resurrected! Originally written by a Petaluma High School recent graduate, (thank you Ben), it’s on the menu at the bottom of the page. It appears whenever you can take a picture. The picture is converted into a postcard, which you can send to yourself, or a friend. Back in the early days of the internet, we let you write your own message on the postcard. Today, I don’t have the resources to monitor abuse, so the postcard the includes the picture with a general message.

Driving Instructions to Stores:

Below the car interface you’ll find directions to the four stores that were part of Zv101:

• High Tide Surf Shop
• Reading Rhythm & ROM
• Sonoma Stamp
• Workforce Boot

When you get to the store and you’re facing the door, going forward takes you “inside”.

I’ve tried to show what the web site looked like back in 1996. But I’ve only found some text left for Sonoma Stamp, not the full web pages. And the Reading Rhythm & ROM site was already on the internet, so I’ve used archive.org to show what that site looked like back in the day.

Welcome to Zzyzax!

Looking for my highlights tour? Click here. Or, for my notes about resurrecting the site, read on.
   — Jim March, 2026

• Zzyzax uses lots of "pop-up" windows, sized to hold specific content. These "pop-ups" are fine on a desktop screen, but don't work as designed on newer tablet and smartphone screens.
• Zzyzax was designed to fit on a desktop or laptop 640x480 VGA screen. Although 800x600 screens were common, and the 1024x768 was available, we specifically chose the 640x480 so people with lower, cheaper technology could enjoy their visit. To simulate the 640x480 screen, I have resurrected Zzyzax with this screen ratio. My apologies to those that are annoyed by this.
• Zzyzax disables controls (like back and forward) in the pop-ups. In the early days, when security concerns were less necessary, we could build clean pop-ups. This allowed more space for content and less for control. Today, many of these options are not available. To to make the interface more friendly in today's world, I have added a navigation bar at the bottom of the subsequent screens. This navigation bar includes 4 or 5 buttons: "Zyzzax" (back to the home page), "Back" (go back one screen), a camera icon (when postcards are possible), "About" (read about Zzyzax), and "Help" (context-sensitive help). This navigation bar did not exist in the original version.

Many parts of the site had to be redeveloped since the old technology is no longer supported. This includes:

• Sound files like AU (Sun Microsystems), RA/RAM (RealAudio) and WAV (IBM/Microsoft) were converted to MP3 files.
• PhotoVista (a competitor to Apple's QTVR) 360-panorama display images were redeployed using open source javascript and HTML code from Pannellum.
• The entire site was ported from HTTP to HTTPS. Though HTTPS became available in 1994, it was very rarely used in 1996.
• We loved our car radio! Streaming audio was new, and getting radio stations from around the world was as much fun as listening to a ham radio during the 1950/60's! But today, streaming radio stations are much harder to find. I found three that were local to Petaluma :(
• In those early days, cross-linking was important. Alta-Vista (the top search engine) used links as a way of validating the interest in a web site. More links from other sites meant a higher listing on Alta-Vista. So we built a page of links to sites we liked. Today, most of those links have disappeared. To give a better experience of the resurrected site, I tried to find the original sites we linked to. Thanks to the Internet Archive database, I was able to link to most of the original content. Links to a non-Zzyzax sites are opened in a new window which is sized to 640x480 to keep their original layout.
• The Event Calendar dates and the Poster Wall fliers have been frozen to 1997-98, as they were when the site was up.

When we built Zzyzax, the web was a much friendlier place. We allowed visitors to post on bulletin boards, share journals, develop guided tours, and send postcards. There was a lot of self-policing and people were just nicer to each other. It was fun (and naive) to have a site where visitors could share their experiences with each other, as a real traveler might. Today, I have to assume that many of those visiting the site will make it their job to leave the site worse off than they found it. So I have disabled all the personal touches. I love postcards, so have left that ability on Zzyzax. Unfortunately, that means I had to make the text fixed and generic. Again, I apologize to those that are annoyed by this.

Back in 1996, cookies were used to identify the visitor, not for advertising and tracking consumers. We wanted our cookies to allow us to get to know our visitors. As well, we used our own technology, called "ClikTrax" to track the visitor as they navigated our site. In particular, we used our "MapClix" routine to see where visitors were clicking images. If we saw that visitors were interested in a particular part of the image, we could build additional responses (like curiosity about parts of the Guidebook images, or Window Shopping clicks on certain products). I have disabled almost all of this technology (except the MapClix) since there is nobody home to analyze your visit. Apologies to those that are annoyed by this.

Again, back in 1996, people wanted to know how many unique visitors a site had. "You are visitor: nnnn" was a common line at the bottom of the home page. To do this, we used something called a "one-bit-GIF" to log, assign visitor numbers, and track visitors. Today, such behavior is discouraged and not polite since it is clandestine (may not be disclosed) and invades your privacy.

In general, Zzyzax was born in an earlier, naive web, before we needed all the protections from anonymous web attacks and invasions. I guess it was more of a "flower child" of the '60's. But then, so was I ;)

In spite of all these qualifications, I hope you will find Zzyzax as interesting as I still do. It is a window into a time at the early twilight of the web, when imagination was rampant, and technology frustrating!

Enjoy!

Jim March, 2025

Acknowledgments:

Zzyzax would never have been possible without lots of help and support! Special thanks to those that made Zzyzax possible: Wayne Johnson (who helped fund us), Chris Johnson (tech geek extraordinaire and inventor of the graphic car interface of v.1.0.1), Ben Trott (Perl programmer extraordinaire) and Mena Grabowski (web designer extraordinaire, especially the Bill Soberanes site), Sam Curran, Jed Saunders, Gloria Batemon (the perfect choice to manage all these young creative egos), Paul McHenry (sales), Susan Bono (for writing beautiful vignettes about the merchants), and Rhoann Ponsetti (who helped us research marketing the ClikTrax product).

The Zzyzax site is large – 39.9MB in 2,981 files. This includes 1,045 HTML’s, 1,697 image files (JPG, GIF, and the more modern PNG, when I had to rebuild new images), 149 image map files, 78 sound files (formerly AU, RA/RAM, and WAV, converted to MP3), and 37 Perl scripts (12,732 lines of code, of which only 12 scripts and 4,380 lines of code was resurrected).

The site was built over a two-and-a-half-year period, from March 1996 to September 1998. Our first version, Zzyzax v.1.0.1, was launched in September of 1996. The second version, Zzyzax v.2.0, was launched the summer of 1997.

So, where to start? Start at the main menu at https://zzyzax.com!

Zzyzax Highlights

The idea of Zzyzax was to give you a web site where you could take a 15-minute (coffee break) virtual vacation. Here are some highlights.

1. Drive around Petaluma!
2. Investigate the Guidebook
3. 360-degree Panoramic Views
4. Window Shop
5. Entertainment
6. Radio
7. Shopping and Factory Tour
8. Community Events
9. Postcards
10. Local Links

Our earliest incarnation of the site was Zzyzax v.1.0.1. I’ve made this available by adding it at the end of the “Tour Around” page. This version was inspired by a completely graphical interface, using icons already known to people (steering wheel, brake, gas, radio, glove compartment). Chris Johnson designed and built the car interface. Long before Google Street View, we allowed people to “drive around” Petaluma. Originally, there were 30 nodes (stopping points where you could get a 360 degree view). For this reincarnation, I was able to resurrect only 17 of them (the others are lost).

1. Select “Tour Around” from the list on the left of the window.
2. Go to the bottom of that page and click on the silver “Zzyzax” logo.
3. Click on the side and front windows to move around downtown Petaluma.
4. Click on the radio and select a local radio show!
5. Try out the camera! Send yourself a Zzyzax postcard!
6. When you’re done, click on the Zzyzax logo in the bottom navigation bar.

In addition to the driving “nodes,” this version had four merchants. All purchases were handled by printing out order forms and faxing the information to the merchant. This version also had “entertainment” inside the theater, where we showcased a local musician and gave links to movie studios.

Try out the radio! We were able to stream five local radio stations back in 1996. I could only find three for the resurrected version.

The glove compartment used to contain a map similar to the “Points of Interest” and information similar to the “Guidebook” of version 2.0. And the glove compartment also had a camera for taking pictures and sending them as postcards. Unfortunately, these feature have also been lost. I have implemented the camera in the resurrected version by adding it to the bottom navigation bar.

What do people do on vacation? One option, read a guidebook of interesting places and facts. Petaluma is a historic town with lots of stories. The guidebook lets you learn some history, stories, architecture, movie trivia, or other tidbits about 16 different locations in downtown Petaluma.

1. Select “Tour Around” from the list on the left of the window.
2. Select “Guidebook” (this opens a “pop-up” window).
3. Use the brightly colored “Key” on the right side to select a landmark.
4. Use the five symbols on the left for information about that landmark. Choose from “History”, “Stories”, “Architecture”, “Movies”, and “Tell me About” topics (active when blue, inactive when gray).
5. When you’re done, close the Guidebook pop-up window.

Here you can see 360-degree photography from several special locations in and around Petaluma.

1. Select "Tour Around” from the list on the left of the main window.
2. Select “Panoramic Views”
3. Pick a location and click.
4. Use “Back” to pick another location.
5. When you’re done, click on the Zzyzax logo in the bottom navigation bar.

Visit the store fronts of over 70 Petaluma merchants!

1. Select “Tour Around” from the list on the left of the main window.
2. Select “Window Shop” (opens a pop-up window)
3. Pick a merchant, or click on “Random” in the navigation bar.
4. Try out the camera! Send yourself a Zzyzax postcard!
5. When you’re done, close the Window Shop pop-up window.

We wanted to include all the Petaluma merchants on our site, even if they didn’t pay for the privilege. So, even though these merchants weren’t sold on the web yet, we photographed their “store windows” to allow visitors to window shop. We hoped to sell the merchants on joining Zzyzax by telling them how many people came by their windows every month, as well as telling the merchants which products the visitors were clicking, using our proprietary “MapClix” software.

Some folks liked to see entertainment while on vacation, so we gave our visitors some entertainment, too. Of special interest, sample the sounds of local musicians, see the works of local painters and photographers, visit Petaluma’s local festivals, meet local journalist and “peopleologist” Bill Soberanes.

1. Select “Entertainment” from the main window.
2. Select “Musicians,” or “Painters,” or “Photographers” from the list.
3. Don’t pass up a visit to “Peopleologist” Bill Soberanes.
4. Check out the “Poster Wall” for events and great postcards!
5. Use “Back” to pick another selection.
6. When you’re done, click on the Zzyzax logo in the bottom navigation bar.

We gave free advertising to artists, giving them a web presence. We sponsored local festivals by building them their first web site. We highlighted local legend and man-about-town Bill Soberanes, a man who had over 10,000 photographs of himself with other people. He was truly the first “Selfie King”!

Streaming sound over the web was new and exciting. You could hear live radio shows from all over the world! So we put a radio into Zzyzax, with local stations, and you could visit the site with the radio on! Note: This feature was available in the car interface of Zzyzax v.1.0.1, too. Also note: In the resurrected site, no additional add-on is required to play the radio.

1. Select “Tour Around” from the main window.
2. Select the “radio” from the bottom navigation bar (opens a pop-up window).
3. Click on the radio dial to pick a station.
4. Click on the right knob to control the volume.
5. When you’re done, close the Radio pop-up window.

Before Amazon and Etsy, we conceived of a way small local merchants could compete on the web. By asking local merchants to put together special, “Petaluma Vacation” packages, we hoped to sell products to visitors. We convinced nine merchants to join us for the release of v.2.0.

1. Select “Shopping” from the main window.
2. Select one of the ten merchants from the list (opens a pop-up).
3. Don’t pass up the tour at “More Than A Mailbox”!
4. When you’re done with the merchant, close the Merchant window.
5. When you’re done visiting merchants, click on the Zzyzax logo in the bottom navigation bar.

We built their web sites using a combination of story and special graphics (a 360-degree photo of the inside of the store). For an additional fee, we built a tour.

See the More-Than-A-Mailbox site for the virtual tour, including several 360-shots showing the products being made! We called this feature a “factory tour”.

As a service to the community, we had a “poster wall”. If a local event had a flier, we’d put it up on the web for them at no charge. Here is a year’s worth of fliers.

1. Select “Community Events” from the main window.
2. Select a poster from the wall.
3. Don’t pass up using the camera to send a great postcard!
4. Use “Back” to pick another selection.
5. When you’re done, click on the Zzyzax logo in the bottom navigation bar.

When you click on any of the fliers, a larger version is displayed, with the option of using the camera to take a picture and create a postcard. The idea was to get people to advertise their events by coming to Zzyzax and sending friends postcards, which had convenient links back to Zzyzax, of course!

You can also send an historic postcard, courtesy of the City of Petaluma and the Petaluma Historical Library & Museum.

1. Select “Share the Experience” from the main window.
2. Select a postcard (opens a pop-up window).
3. Fill in the blanks and send a great postcard!
4. When you’ve sent the postcard, close the Postcard window.
5. When you’re done sending postcards, click on the Zzyzax logo in the bottom navigation bar.

As was often the case back in the early days of the web, we participated in a cooperative effort of cross-linking. We linked to your site, if you linked to ours. This helped to increase Zzyzax’s Alta Vista Search Engine (before Google) ranking.

1. Select “Links” from the main window.
2. Select a link (opens a new tab in your browser).
3. When you’re done with this link, close the tab.
4. When you’re done looking at links, click on the Zzyzax logo in the bottom navigation bar.

Here, I’ve taken our original local links and searched for them in Archive.org, creators of the Wayback Machine. If you click on a local link, you’ll be put into a new window, at 640x480 scale, showing the actual web site from the 1996 to 1998 period. It’s a good sample of sites, and what they looked like back in the late 1990’s.

That ends the tour. There's lots more to discover! Maybe on your next coffee break vacation. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed creating Zzyzax back in 1996!