4 ms·

100 oldest .com domains

50 points by joao 18y ago

mechanical_fish 18y ago
Sometimes it's hard to believe that the oldest domain is still less than 25 years old.
dc2k08 18y ago
http://symbolics.com/ http://symbolics.com/ doesn't look like it's been updated too much since then either. Here it is from 98, no divs, no doc-type: http://web.archive.org/web/19981207002851/stony-brook.scrc.symbolics.com/www/index.html http://web.archive.org/web/19981207002851/stony-brook.scrc.s...
mynameishere 18y ago
"Some companies," I told Jane Hulbert, "are even registering the names of their competitors." http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds.html
- Shamiq 18y ago
  To place this in context...I was six, and my family couldn't afford a computer. It would be another 2 years before we had a Dell in the house. I've kinda been addicted to it since.
- tlrobinson 18y ago
  "No burger_king.com either." I find it sort of amusing people thought we would be using underscores in place of spaces in domain names. Also amusing: "The guy in registration? One person is responsible for assigning domain names on the Internet? Actually, "We have 2.5 people doing it," Williamson said, meaning that the half person is really a full person doing it part-time."
nick_a 18y ago
8 of the 10 oldest domains can be tied to lisp... and to keven bacon... 1. symbolics.com: made Lisp machines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolics 2. bbn.com: BBN made BBN Lisp for the PDP-1: http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/index.html#BBN_LISP_ http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/index.html... 3. think.com: homepage of Thinking Machines Incorporated, the company that made lisp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/*Lisp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/*Lisp 4. ... 5. dec.com: Digital Equipment Corporation (which got bought by compaq, which was bought by HP) made PDP microcomputers. The first interactive lisp was implemented on the PDP-1 in 1963 by Peter Deutsch http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/lisp/node5.html http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/lisp/node5.html 6. northrop.com: northrop is still using lisp http://www.international-lisp-conference.org/2005/speakers.html#rusty_johnson http://www.international-lisp-conference.org/2005/speakers.h... 7. xerox.com: xerox made the Xerox Lisp Machines http://www.andromeda.com/people/ddyer/lisp/ http://www.andromeda.com/people/ddyer/lisp/ 8. sri.com: SRI is still using lisp http://www.franz.com/success/customer_apps/it_management/sri.php3 http://www.franz.com/success/customer_apps/it_management/sri... 9. hp.com: HP can be tied to lisp... but more strongly to keven bacon... http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/90/HPL-90-213.html http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/90/HPL-90-213.html 10. ...
- stcredzero 18y ago
  My coworker has a symbolics.com email address. He has a (sometimes) working Lisp machine in his living room.
- bootload 18y ago
  "... bbn.com: BBN made BBN Lisp for the PDP-1 ..." bbn have been making a lot of things first ~ http://www.bbn.com/about/timeline/ http://www.bbn.com/about/timeline/
eventhough 18y ago
Interesting bit of trivia: nobody can ever have example.com, example.net, or example.org because it's a reserved domain for the RFC. Check it out at www.example.com.
mattculbreth 18y ago
Notice that Apple.com is on here, but no Microsoft.com.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- swilliams 18y ago
  I'm not surprised. Microsoft (Bill Gates) didn't see the point of the Internet for a long time.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
ashleyw 18y ago
Were there any restrictions on what you could register? (i.e. only domains related to your company) I'd have thought people would have registered generic words first...
- gaius 18y ago
  Yeah, people used to care back in the day, like whether you were commercial or nonprofit, etc. .net was reserved for infrastructure providers, organizations who actually owned and operated the physical bits of the network. Nowadays it's a free for all, tho' I think .edu still maintains criteria for registration. There was a long-running saga of people trying to register fuck.com and being told "no" too.
decadentcactus 18y ago
http://whois.domaintools.com/nordu.net http://whois.domaintools.com/nordu.net
shadytrees 18y ago
All that work for a yourmom.com joke.
Jem 18y ago
Holy crap, the top 6 are older than me.
pmjordan 18y ago
Hah: 86= 03-Sep-1987 SCO.COM for how much longer, I wonder?
volida 18y ago
anybody knows what was the price to buy 1 back then?
- ars 18y ago
  It was free, you just had to have a reason for it.
  - iman 18y ago
    Are they still free? Or are they now paying renewal fees like the rest of us?
    - ars 18y ago
      No they pay now. At the time the fees were billed as a way of expiring unused domains, if you didn't pay, after a while they'd delete the domain. It didn't work out that way exactly once the company realized how much money they could make. I'm still kicking myself for not registering some names. But at the time it was all ethical and you were not supposed to register something unless you actually needed it.
      - volida 18y ago
        "But at the time it was all ethical" Similar to that is the impression between people who know each other that is not ethical to do a similar software business. I assume this is more valid between programmers than in any other industry because people involved are more often more nice. But I suppose someone will live to understand that this is wrong to assume.

50 points by joao 18y ago

Sometimes it's hard to believe that the oldest domain is still less than 25 years old.

http://symbolics.com/ http://symbolics.com/ doesn't look like it's been updated too much since then either. Here it is from 98, no divs, no doc-type: http://web.archive.org/web/19981207002851/stony-brook.scrc.symbolics.com/www/index.html http://web.archive.org/web/19981207002851/stony-brook.scrc.s...

mynameishere 18y ago

"Some companies," I told Jane Hulbert, "are even registering the names of their competitors." http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds.html

Shamiq 18y ago
To place this in context...I was six, and my family couldn't afford a computer. It would be another 2 years before we had a Dell in the house. I've kinda been addicted to it since.
tlrobinson 18y ago
"No burger_king.com either." I find it sort of amusing people thought we would be using underscores in place of spaces in domain names. Also amusing: "The guy in registration? One person is responsible for assigning domain names on the Internet? Actually, "We have 2.5 people doing it," Williamson said, meaning that the half person is really a full person doing it part-time."

nick_a 18y ago

8 of the 10 oldest domains can be tied to lisp... and to keven bacon... 1. symbolics.com: made Lisp machines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolics 2. bbn.com: BBN made BBN Lisp for the PDP-1: http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/index.html#BBN_LISP_ http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/index.html... 3. think.com: homepage of Thinking Machines Incorporated, the company that made lisp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/*Lisp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/*Lisp 4. ... 5. dec.com: Digital Equipment Corporation (which got bought by compaq, which was bought by HP) made PDP microcomputers. The first interactive lisp was implemented on the PDP-1 in 1963 by Peter Deutsch http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/lisp/node5.html http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/lisp/node5.html 6. northrop.com: northrop is still using lisp http://www.international-lisp-conference.org/2005/speakers.html#rusty_johnson http://www.international-lisp-conference.org/2005/speakers.h... 7. xerox.com: xerox made the Xerox Lisp Machines http://www.andromeda.com/people/ddyer/lisp/ http://www.andromeda.com/people/ddyer/lisp/ 8. sri.com: SRI is still using lisp http://www.franz.com/success/customer_apps/it_management/sri.php3 http://www.franz.com/success/customer_apps/it_management/sri... 9. hp.com: HP can be tied to lisp... but more strongly to keven bacon... http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/90/HPL-90-213.html http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/90/HPL-90-213.html 10. ...

stcredzero 18y ago
My coworker has a symbolics.com email address. He has a (sometimes) working Lisp machine in his living room.
bootload 18y ago
"... bbn.com: BBN made BBN Lisp for the PDP-1 ..." bbn have been making a lot of things first ~ http://www.bbn.com/about/timeline/ http://www.bbn.com/about/timeline/

eventhough 18y ago

Interesting bit of trivia: nobody can ever have example.com, example.net, or example.org because it's a reserved domain for the RFC. Check it out at www.example.com.

mattculbreth 18y ago

Notice that Apple.com is on here, but no Microsoft.com.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
swilliams 18y ago
I'm not surprised. Microsoft (Bill Gates) didn't see the point of the Internet for a long time.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

ashleyw 18y ago

Were there any restrictions on what you could register? (i.e. only domains related to your company) I'd have thought people would have registered generic words first...

gaius 18y ago
Yeah, people used to care back in the day, like whether you were commercial or nonprofit, etc. .net was reserved for infrastructure providers, organizations who actually owned and operated the physical bits of the network. Nowadays it's a free for all, tho' I think .edu still maintains criteria for registration. There was a long-running saga of people trying to register fuck.com and being told "no" too.

decadentcactus 18y ago

http://whois.domaintools.com/nordu.net http://whois.domaintools.com/nordu.net

shadytrees 18y ago

All that work for a yourmom.com joke.

Jem 18y ago

Holy crap, the top 6 are older than me.

pmjordan 18y ago

Hah: 86= 03-Sep-1987 SCO.COM for how much longer, I wonder?

volida 18y ago

anybody knows what was the price to buy 1 back then?

ars 18y ago
It was free, you just had to have a reason for it.
- iman 18y ago
  Are they still free? Or are they now paying renewal fees like the rest of us?
  - ars 18y ago
    No they pay now. At the time the fees were billed as a way of expiring unused domains, if you didn't pay, after a while they'd delete the domain. It didn't work out that way exactly once the company realized how much money they could make. I'm still kicking myself for not registering some names. But at the time it was all ethical and you were not supposed to register something unless you actually needed it.
    - volida 18y ago
      "But at the time it was all ethical" Similar to that is the impression between people who know each other that is not ethical to do a similar software business. I assume this is more valid between programmers than in any other industry because people involved are more often more nice. But I suppose someone will live to understand that this is wrong to assume.