Technical Specifications

// 001 // ARCHITECTURE

System Overview

📡 Global Edge Network

Distributed edge nodes located in 14 regions worldwide ensure low-latency access to archived content. Traffic is routed via anycast DNS.

🗄️ Immutable Storage

All archival data is stored in append-only WARC containers with cryptographic hashing. Erasure coding provides 99.99999999% durability.

🔍 Search Cluster

Elasticsearch-based indexing of metadata, text content, and URL structures. Supports era-specific query filters.

// 002 // DATA FORMATS

Archival Standards

WARC-HEADER-EXAMPLE
# WARC File: archive_1995_q4.warc.gz
WARC-Record-ID: <urn:uuid:3e2a7b9d-5c8f-4a2e-9b1a-7f6d4c2e8a1b>
WARC-Type: response
WARC-Target-URI: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/99382/
WARC-Date: 1995-11-15T08:23:41Z
WARC-Block-Digest: sha1:K7X92JDLMEP4NQWV8R6SZH5TBGAYUC3IF
Content-Type: application/http; msgtype=response
Content-Length: 4829

Format	Specification	Support Level	Notes
WARC 1.1	RFC 8493	Standard	Primary archival format with WARC-GZ compression.
WARC-PROX	IETF Draft	Beta	Proxy capture for dynamic content reconstruction.
ARC	Archive-It	Legacy	Read-only support for migration from legacy systems.
HTML 2.0/3.2	IETF / W3C	Standard	Native rendering support for early HTML standards.
Gopher / WAIS	Pre-Web Protocols	Standard	Protocol emulation and content conversion.

// 003 // RENDERING ENGINE

Spectacle Core v4.2

Our proprietary Spectacle Rendering Engine emulates the behavior of early browsers to ensure pixel-perfect reproduction of 90s webpages, including quirks, layout bugs, and deprecated features.

🖥️ Browser Profiles

Supports emulation profiles for:

Netscape Navigator 3.0
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0
Mosaic 3.0
Opera 3.5

🎨 CSS & Layout

Handles era-specific rendering:

Inline table layouts
Tiled backgrounds & blink tags
Frame & frameset emulation
Low-resolution image upscaling

RENDER-CONFIG-JSON
{
  "engine_version": "4.2.0-stable",
  "profile": "netscape-3.0",
  "viewport": {
    "width": 640,
    "height": 480,
    "color_depth": 8
  },
  "features": {
    "blink": true,
    "marquee": true,
    "midifx": false,
    "webrings": true
  }
}

// 004 // API INTERFACE

RESTful API Reference

CURL EXAMPLE - RETRIEVE SNAPSHOT
# Retrieve a specific timestamp snapshot
curl -X GET "https://api.1990webarchive.org/v1/snapshots/\nurl=http://www.lunarpages.com/~dave/&\nts=1997-08-14T12:00:00Z&\nformat=warc" \n-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \n-H "Accept: application/warc-gzip"

Endpoint	Method	Description	Rate Limit
/v1/search	GET	Query the archive index by URL, date, or metadata.	100 req/min
/v1/snapshots	GET	Retrieve WARC or rendered HTML for a specific point in time.	50 req/min
/v1/crawl/submit	POST	Submit a URL for immediate archival crawling.	10 req/min
/v1/render/image	GET	Generate a screenshot of an archived page using Spectacle Core.	20 req/min

// 005 // SECURITY & INTEGRITY

Preservation Assurance

🔐 Cryptographic Verification

Every WARC record includes SHA-256 block digests. Archive integrity is verified via periodic deep-scan audits against root hashes stored on an immutable ledger.

⏱️ Trusted Timestamping

All submissions are timestamped using RFC 3161 compliant TSA servers, providing non-repudiable proof of content existence at a specific epoch.

🛡️ Access Control

RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) for internal operators. Public API enforces API key rotation and IP allowlisting for enterprise tiers.

📜 Compliance

Meets OAIS Reference Model requirements. Compatible with LOCKSS, CASRA, and TRAC standards for digital preservation.