Web compatibility, Ajax in the 90s (IE3 days)

Some years ago I was focused on web development, on those days, end of the 90s, I was relativity confident with HTML/Javascript tricks to make your app  running with different browsers, almos IE3 and NS3/4.

Both of them supported JS, so you can expect some "data-retrieval" and "in-screen-update" without a "page-refresh".

The trick was:

For data retrieval you could use:

<script src="jsGetCars.asp" mce_src="jsGetCars.asp" />

Or

<iframe href="jsGetCars.asp" mce_href="jsGetCars.asp" />

Where your server side (old ASP) code will generate js code like:

var cars = {"ROLLS", "BMW", "Ford"};

To update this information in the screen you can manage a basic DOM through the forms collection:

var f = document.forms["myForm"];

f.elments[1].value = cars[1];

Imagine how easy was to implement a "ajax-like-data-navigator" compatible for multiple browsers, OSes.

I discover this pattern back in 1998 in a Commercial Web System called Connect

After this illusive nature of  browser-compatibilty I expect some kind of web development generalization.

That epoque ended with  the adveniment of CSS. CSS is great but every company has it's own level of support, making the web, and of course we are targeting much more browser-OS combinations that 10 years ago.

The result is simple: most internet web sites only supports an small range of browsers.  The funny thing is that browser vendors sometimes does not support old versions of their own browsers (note that when I said "support" I refer to the ability to mantain some the page usable for older browsers)

Today, I found https://www.quirksmode.org/browsers/multipleie.html where you can find old IE's that run on XP !!

Look how IE3 users will see microsoft.com, msn.com and google.com