There was a point in computing history when making your Windows desktop look like The Matrix counted as a legitimate software project.
ZMatrix is a desktop enhancement that renders streams of characters behind ordinary desktop icons in the visual style popularized by the film. The project page is still sitting on SourceForge with its original screenshots, downloads, change log, bug reports, support links, and development notes.
The surviving page captures the software culture around Windows 98, Me, 2000, and XP unusually well.
Desktop customization used to require code
ZMatrix was not simply an animated GIF stretched over a wallpaper.
The program rendered text, blended it with existing backgrounds, tried not to interfere with desktop icons, included configuration controls, and eventually gained multi-monitor support, screensaver operation, Winamp visualization support, and special text streams.
The change log is the best part.
It documents taskbar-position bugs, disappearing icons, Active Desktop compatibility, installer privileges, password-protected screensavers, font spacing problems, Windows 9x support, and the sort of obscure rendering failures that only appear after strangers install your program on machines you have never seen.
In March 2002 the author released source code, initially under a BSD-style license and later under the GNU GPL. The page says a full build required Visual Studio 6.0 and Borland C++ Builder 6.0, which dates the project almost as efficiently as the screenshots do.
By February 2002, the author noted that the program had been linked from enough places to earn a USA Today “Pick of the Day.”
The site also preserves a miniature history of freeware distribution: dial-up-conscious installer sizes, SourceForge bug trackers, download portals, donation links, and irritation at commercial download sites charging developers for faster listing updates.
That is why pages like this belong in CacheRat’s 1,967 Ancient Web Domains research list. The software itself is interesting, but the surrounding page records how independent Windows utilities were actually made and distributed.