This fascinating vintage map by graphic artist Timothy Edward Downs takes us down past the manhole cover into the Underground Internet, "where you'll find some of the scariest, funniest, and most thought-provoking sites in cyberspace" (but don't worry - it's all legal). The map is part of a series of a dozen or so road map-like posters published by PC Computing magazine in the mid-1990s as a marketing ploy to set them apart from competitors like PC Magazine and PC World. For his "road maps," Downs drew inspiration from classic subway maps and circuit board imagery as a way to give shape to the abstract concept of the internet. The sites here are organized into five broad categories: Computers, Entertainment & Humor, Lifestyles, Just Plain Weird, and Underground. Perusing the sites on offer, one can see today's Internet culture in a more innocent, embryonic form. Many of the core components are present - sex, information, alternative communities, gaming, random humor, gambling, conspiracies, controversy - but in a simpler, earlier stage of their evolution. The emphasis is on curiosity rather than actual vice. For instance, there is a forum on safe sex and information on the "cyberporn debate," but no pornography is mentioned (perhaps PC Computing was just being polite). On the gambling front, there are games like the Virtual Slot Machine ("Distracting for nearly ten minutes"), but the only online casino that seems to offer gambling with real money is not legally available for U.S. citizens. Elsewhere, there are random generators for haiku, pretentious postmodern citations, and surreal compliments; collections of late night talk show bits (no video or audio clips - just the text); a surprising number of gun rights websites ("You can instantly tell which side of the gun debate has the most money by looking at their Web sites"); sites covering tattoos, body modification, Roswell, urban legends, contemporary witch hunts, and banned books; a place to buy "100 percent FCC legal" radar scramblers; and even a bit of proto-social media, with a site showing what Sho Kuwamoto, a random grad student at Purdue, eats for lunch everyday. The text is by contributing editor Neil Randall, who peppers the map with funny asides. More text and advertising on verso. Self-folding into pictorial wrappers (4.0 x 8.8"). Although the PC Computing map posters were printed in large runs, they are scarce on the market today and rarely seen in institutional collections.

References: Rumsey #10451.

Condition: B+

Issued folding with a hint of wear along a few folds and a handful of manuscript ink notations.