The Flash Twin Tags

plugins and media 1998 dead

OBJECT for Internet Explorer, EMBED nested inside it for everyone else, both pointing at the same file.

In 2026: Dead: Flash was switched off worldwide at the end of 2020. The nesting worked because IE read the OBJECT and ignored the EMBED, while Netscape did the reverse. The CODEBASE URL fetched the plugin installer if the visitor had none.

Where it came from: Macromedia Flash 4 publishing templates, 1999. The nesting pattern is often credited to Macromedia's own HTML export. Wikipedia ↗

<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
        codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0"
        width="550" height="400" id="intro">
  <param name="movie" value="intro.swf">
  <param name="quality" value="high">
  <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000">
  <param name="wmode" value="transparent">
  <embed src="intro.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#000000" wmode="transparent"
         width="550" height="400" name="intro" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
         pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer">
</object>

<!-- And the skip link, because everybody hated the intro -->
<p><a href="main.html">Skip intro</a></p>

sandboxed demo · breaks nothing but itselfrestart

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