> the browser APIs necessary to make this "90s" effect possible, and when they were first shipped ... In 2019 it only takes a few lines of code to do the kind of creative things we struggled with in 1999.<p>Uh, none of the mentioned APIs are necessary to put trailing stars at the mouse pointer (i mean, it is a "90s" effect after all, the hint about the necessity of these post 2010s APIs is in the name) and in fact i cannot even think why they'd be necessary in the first place. I made such silly effects back in the 90s myself and there was no struggle at all, especially the trail stuff is ridiculously simple and i think you can even do it in Netscape 4.x with a few lines of code.