My bookmark file is quite elderly, having travelled from one computer to another with me for at least 10 years, and bits of it longer than that. This evening I came across a sub-sub-folder containing links to internet mapping sites. Alas, of the 4 sites, 3 of them were deceased.

PARC.Xerox was the first internet mapping site I ever encountered. Alas, this service is no more.

The Delorme CyberAtlas was, as far as I know, the very first website where you could put in two addresses and get a door-to-door map. First one I ever found, anyways. I remember it causing a bit of a stir that you could put in someone street address and get a map to their front door. Seems silly now. Alas, this site is deceased, although the company is still going strong.

Mapquest, of course, still going strong, and largely unchanged all these years later.

And, one that I found perhaps most interesting of all, Yahoo Maps at its original location, http://www.proximus.com/yahoo/. The domain name is now apparently owned by Microsoft, while Yahoo Maps itself has moved elsewhere.

And there endeth the history lesson. I found a bunch of other goodies buried in the bowels of my bookmark file, but they’ll have to wait for another time.