By now every web developer worth their spit knows that the lack of a valid DOCTYPE will trigger “quirks mode” in modern browsers (IE 6 on Windows, IE 5 on Mac OS X, and Mozilla on any platform). Quirks mode is a backward compatibility feature to simulate rendering bugs in previous versions of the browsers (IE 5’s box-model problem, Netscape 4’s everything).

But exactly what are the quirks that quirks mode triggers? WebDesign-L pointed me to Craig Saila’s DOCTYPE reference, which pointed me to these resources:

Quirks mode in various browsers

  1. Quirks mode in IE 6 on Windows
  2. Quirks mode in IE 5 on Mac OS X
  3. Quirks mode in Mozilla

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