5 ms·

The oldest .com domain names

43 points by amdixon 12y ago

jordanpg 12y ago
Definitely check out the rather weird site at the oldest domain name in the list: http://symbolics.com/ http://symbolics.com/
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  Disappointed that the oldest site ever can hire a decent frontend guy, slow and buggy on chrome on my mbp.
  - cema 12y ago
    It is not the oldest site, just the oldest .com domain.
- tsuru 12y ago
  Unfortunately the original was much more hacker friendly and awesome. Lisp Machines! They sold it off several years ago and now live here: http://www.symbolics-dks.com/ http://www.symbolics-dks.com/
  - JasonFruit 12y ago
    And that site is downright embarrassing. It reminds me of the way a very different but still excellent kind of older software, Delphi, went after it lost steam and was sold off by Borland: it went to people who milked it for all it was worth while putting as little into it as possible.
    - tsuru 12y ago
      my "awesome" referenced more of the product they were selling than the website they were/are running. But yes, they lost to Unix / AI winter and all the money dried up.
- arihant 12y ago
  Apparently the company sold it to some guy. Here is the story - http://symbolics.com/about-symbolics/ http://symbolics.com/about-symbolics/ Can't comment on how true it is.
  - aestra 12y ago
    Wonder how much he paid for it.
- currysausage 12y ago
  I have a 50 Mbps connection. After 1 minute and 10 seconds, it has loaded 3.6 MB and is still displaying a white spinning wheel on a beautiful blue background. Amazing.
arihant 12y ago
Given that this list spans a little over two years, I'm surprised to see no microsoft.com, all the other tech giants at the time are pretty much in here.
- lysium 12y ago
  Maybe busy with their IPO? PS: microsoft.com was registered May 02, 1991
- hudell 12y ago
  Well, people say Microsoft didn't think internet was a big deal back on the day.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
fps 12y ago
This is more accurately the 100 oldest .com domains - Wikipedia's list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_registered_Internet_domain_names http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_re...) includes the list for the other TLDs. For example, it looks like 5 .edu domains were added at the same time as bbn.com was on April 24, 1985.
- jccalhoun 12y ago
  True. It looks like nordu.net is the oldest active domain having been registered on January 1, 1985 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORDUnet#Distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORDUnet#Distinction
- mhandley 12y ago
  Even that list is incomplete, as it misses the country-code domains. For example, ucl.ac.uk was in DNS sometime in mid 1985 (http://domainincite.com/2657-was-this-the-first-ever-uk-domain http://domainincite.com/2657-was-this-the-first-ever-uk-doma...) But DNS registration wasn't the beginning of domain names - before DNS there was hosts.txt and some "new-style" domain names found their way in there before DNS. This document ftp://ftp.maths.tcd.ie/src/mail/mmdf-Maths/doc/auth.ps from April 1985 by Steve Kille at UCL includes a server log (page 5) that lists hosts in cambridge.ac.uk, rsre.ac.uk, ukc.ac.uk, and rutherford.ac.uk in use all before the domain names were registered in DNS. Disclaimer: I've had the same cs.ucl.ac.uk email address since I was a student in Sept 1985. Now I'm feeling old.
ca98am79 12y ago
Why does #45 have a space in it? "Data IO.com" If you look up dataio.com, it says the creation date is October 10, 1997: http://who.is/whois/dataIO.com http://who.is/whois/dataIO.com I assume this is a typo? Or could domains have spaces in them back then? EDIT: I see from the wikipedia page it is actually "data-io.com"
- jgeorge 12y ago
  Creation dates are from the most recent domain creation record, and can be reset from a domain ownership transfer. I lost my precious domain creation date of September 1993 when I transfered my domain from the ISP who registered it /in their own name/ (argh) to my own ownership in 1998.
  - ca98am79 12y ago
    wow, 1993 - what domain?
bonzoq 12y ago
Symptomatic Microsoft's domain is not on this list. Looks like they missed the internet revolution.
- dbarlett 12y ago
  Yes, famously. Bill Gates sent his "Internet Tidal Wave" memo in 1995 and admitted they were behind: Some competitors have a much deeper involvement in the Internet than Microsoft. All UNIX vendors are benefiting from the Internet since the default server is still a UNIX box and not Windows NT, particularly for high end demands, SUN has exploited this quite effectively. [...] Browsing the Web, you find almost no Microsoft file formats. After 10 hours of browsing, I had not seen a single Word .DOC, AVI file, Windows .EXE (other than content viewers), or other Microsoft file format. [...] A new competitor “born” on the Internet is Netscape. Their browser is dominant, with 70% usage share, allowing them to determine which network extensions will catch on. They are pursuing a multi-platform strategy where they move the key API into the client to commoditize the underlying operating system. [1] http://www.wired.com/2010/05/0526bill-gates-internet-memo/all/ http://www.wired.com/2010/05/0526bill-gates-internet-memo/al...
nkozyra 12y ago
> Domain names have been actually been available for 28 years – yes, before you even knew what a computer looked like. :grouchface:
- JohnTHaller 12y ago
  Oh you mean 2 years after I taught myself to program on a Commodore 64 hooked up to a black and white TV in my bedroom? #getoffmylawn
  - nkozyra 12y ago
    At 35 I'm not sure I qualify for greybeard status (perhaps relatively), but when you write something like this is there some illusion that everyone reading a tech piece is under 25?
    - TillE 12y ago
      Even that wouldn't make sense here, because then it would be "before you were born" rather than "before you knew...". I'd hope that anyone writing about tech would be aware of the significance of the C64, Apple IIe, etc.
  - mritun 12y ago
    You had a Commodore 64 ? Kids these days...
    - zwieback 12y ago
      I'm afraid to admit I was an Apple ][ snob when the C64 came out although secretly I envied some of the C64's capabilities.
      - JohnTHaller 12y ago
        It was great. I learned how to program AND compose on it. 3 voice SID chip. I later even got a MIDI cartridge for it.
niix 12y ago
Pretty interesting. Number 49 (Tandy), brings back some nostalgia. Tandy was the first computer I had growing up and the first machine I learn to program on.
zwieback 12y ago
Glad to see we (HP) have a pretty old one and we have DEC as well, I'm guessing we're the biggest holder of class A addresses. Now we're splitting so it'll be interesting to see how that gets distributed.
danvoell 12y ago
I find adobe.com really interesting. What were they doing back then?
- itafroma 12y ago
  > I find adobe.com really interesting. What were they doing back then? Adobe was founded by ex-Xerox PARC employees, so perhaps not surprisingly their first couple of successes were printing related: PostScript and Type 1 fonts in 1982 and 1984, respectively. By 1986 they were working in desktop publishing with the development of Illustrator.
- kayfox 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript
- jameshart 12y ago
  Prepress industry was an early adopter for the internet. Not that surprising that Adobe, whose postscript format as fundamental to that shift to electronic transmission of printable artifacts, were early to the net.
sprkyco 12y ago
There are some real gems in there. mentat.com and then there's entity.com a resume of sorts for Marty Connor who is now apparently the Corporate Operations Engineer at Google.
jnorthrop 12y ago
I have to appreciate that I never stood a chance of getting the .com domain of my last name. It is #6 on the list.
talles 12y ago
A shame to see think.com redirecting to http://www.oracle.com/splash/thinkquest/down-189973.html http://www.oracle.com/splash/thinkquest/down-189973.html, which is broken by the way. think.com is a great domain name...
lispm 12y ago
Basically all the early ones were Lisp companies: * Symbolics, Lisp Machines * BBN, Jericho Lisp Machine running Interlisp, lot's of applied AI stuff - BBN also did a lot of other things * Thinking Machines, Lisp on the Connection Machine MCC, Research Center with a hundred Lisp Machines used for research in AI (Cyc), chip design, object oriented databases (ORION), ... * Xerox: Lisp Machine * SRI: AI research

43 points by amdixon 12y ago

Definitely check out the rather weird site at the oldest domain name in the list: http://symbolics.com/ http://symbolics.com/

Igglyboo 12y ago
Disappointed that the oldest site ever can hire a decent frontend guy, slow and buggy on chrome on my mbp.
- cema 12y ago
  It is not the oldest site, just the oldest .com domain.
tsuru 12y ago
Unfortunately the original was much more hacker friendly and awesome. Lisp Machines! They sold it off several years ago and now live here: http://www.symbolics-dks.com/ http://www.symbolics-dks.com/
- JasonFruit 12y ago
  And that site is downright embarrassing. It reminds me of the way a very different but still excellent kind of older software, Delphi, went after it lost steam and was sold off by Borland: it went to people who milked it for all it was worth while putting as little into it as possible.
  - tsuru 12y ago
    my "awesome" referenced more of the product they were selling than the website they were/are running. But yes, they lost to Unix / AI winter and all the money dried up.
arihant 12y ago
Apparently the company sold it to some guy. Here is the story - http://symbolics.com/about-symbolics/ http://symbolics.com/about-symbolics/ Can't comment on how true it is.
- aestra 12y ago
  Wonder how much he paid for it.
currysausage 12y ago
I have a 50 Mbps connection. After 1 minute and 10 seconds, it has loaded 3.6 MB and is still displaying a white spinning wheel on a beautiful blue background. Amazing.

arihant 12y ago

Given that this list spans a little over two years, I'm surprised to see no microsoft.com, all the other tech giants at the time are pretty much in here.

lysium 12y ago
Maybe busy with their IPO? PS: microsoft.com was registered May 02, 1991
hudell 12y ago
Well, people say Microsoft didn't think internet was a big deal back on the day.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

fps 12y ago

This is more accurately the 100 oldest .com domains - Wikipedia's list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_registered_Internet_domain_names http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_re...) includes the list for the other TLDs. For example, it looks like 5 .edu domains were added at the same time as bbn.com was on April 24, 1985.

jccalhoun 12y ago
True. It looks like nordu.net is the oldest active domain having been registered on January 1, 1985 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORDUnet#Distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORDUnet#Distinction
mhandley 12y ago
Even that list is incomplete, as it misses the country-code domains. For example, ucl.ac.uk was in DNS sometime in mid 1985 (http://domainincite.com/2657-was-this-the-first-ever-uk-domain http://domainincite.com/2657-was-this-the-first-ever-uk-doma...) But DNS registration wasn't the beginning of domain names - before DNS there was hosts.txt and some "new-style" domain names found their way in there before DNS. This document ftp://ftp.maths.tcd.ie/src/mail/mmdf-Maths/doc/auth.ps from April 1985 by Steve Kille at UCL includes a server log (page 5) that lists hosts in cambridge.ac.uk, rsre.ac.uk, ukc.ac.uk, and rutherford.ac.uk in use all before the domain names were registered in DNS. Disclaimer: I've had the same cs.ucl.ac.uk email address since I was a student in Sept 1985. Now I'm feeling old.

ca98am79 12y ago

Why does #45 have a space in it? "Data IO.com" If you look up dataio.com, it says the creation date is October 10, 1997: http://who.is/whois/dataIO.com http://who.is/whois/dataIO.com I assume this is a typo? Or could domains have spaces in them back then? EDIT: I see from the wikipedia page it is actually "data-io.com"

jgeorge 12y ago
Creation dates are from the most recent domain creation record, and can be reset from a domain ownership transfer. I lost my precious domain creation date of September 1993 when I transfered my domain from the ISP who registered it /in their own name/ (argh) to my own ownership in 1998.
- ca98am79 12y ago
  wow, 1993 - what domain?

bonzoq 12y ago

Symptomatic Microsoft's domain is not on this list. Looks like they missed the internet revolution.

dbarlett 12y ago
Yes, famously. Bill Gates sent his "Internet Tidal Wave" memo in 1995 and admitted they were behind: Some competitors have a much deeper involvement in the Internet than Microsoft. All UNIX vendors are benefiting from the Internet since the default server is still a UNIX box and not Windows NT, particularly for high end demands, SUN has exploited this quite effectively. [...] Browsing the Web, you find almost no Microsoft file formats. After 10 hours of browsing, I had not seen a single Word .DOC, AVI file, Windows .EXE (other than content viewers), or other Microsoft file format. [...] A new competitor “born” on the Internet is Netscape. Their browser is dominant, with 70% usage share, allowing them to determine which network extensions will catch on. They are pursuing a multi-platform strategy where they move the key API into the client to commoditize the underlying operating system. [1] http://www.wired.com/2010/05/0526bill-gates-internet-memo/all/ http://www.wired.com/2010/05/0526bill-gates-internet-memo/al...

nkozyra 12y ago

> Domain names have been actually been available for 28 years – yes, before you even knew what a computer looked like. :grouchface:

JohnTHaller 12y ago
Oh you mean 2 years after I taught myself to program on a Commodore 64 hooked up to a black and white TV in my bedroom? #getoffmylawn
- nkozyra 12y ago
  At 35 I'm not sure I qualify for greybeard status (perhaps relatively), but when you write something like this is there some illusion that everyone reading a tech piece is under 25?
  - TillE 12y ago
    Even that wouldn't make sense here, because then it would be "before you were born" rather than "before you knew...". I'd hope that anyone writing about tech would be aware of the significance of the C64, Apple IIe, etc.
- mritun 12y ago
  You had a Commodore 64 ? Kids these days...
  - zwieback 12y ago
    I'm afraid to admit I was an Apple ][ snob when the C64 came out although secretly I envied some of the C64's capabilities.
    - JohnTHaller 12y ago
      It was great. I learned how to program AND compose on it. 3 voice SID chip. I later even got a MIDI cartridge for it.

niix 12y ago

Pretty interesting. Number 49 (Tandy), brings back some nostalgia. Tandy was the first computer I had growing up and the first machine I learn to program on.

zwieback 12y ago

Glad to see we (HP) have a pretty old one and we have DEC as well, I'm guessing we're the biggest holder of class A addresses. Now we're splitting so it'll be interesting to see how that gets distributed.

danvoell 12y ago

I find adobe.com really interesting. What were they doing back then?

itafroma 12y ago
> I find adobe.com really interesting. What were they doing back then? Adobe was founded by ex-Xerox PARC employees, so perhaps not surprisingly their first couple of successes were printing related: PostScript and Type 1 fonts in 1982 and 1984, respectively. By 1986 they were working in desktop publishing with the development of Illustrator.
kayfox 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript
jameshart 12y ago
Prepress industry was an early adopter for the internet. Not that surprising that Adobe, whose postscript format as fundamental to that shift to electronic transmission of printable artifacts, were early to the net.

sprkyco 12y ago

There are some real gems in there. mentat.com and then there's entity.com a resume of sorts for Marty Connor who is now apparently the Corporate Operations Engineer at Google.

jnorthrop 12y ago

I have to appreciate that I never stood a chance of getting the .com domain of my last name. It is #6 on the list.

talles 12y ago

A shame to see think.com redirecting to http://www.oracle.com/splash/thinkquest/down-189973.html http://www.oracle.com/splash/thinkquest/down-189973.html, which is broken by the way. think.com is a great domain name...

lispm 12y ago

Basically all the early ones were Lisp companies: * Symbolics, Lisp Machines * BBN, Jericho Lisp Machine running Interlisp, lot's of applied AI stuff - BBN also did a lot of other things * Thinking Machines, Lisp on the Connection Machine MCC, Research Center with a hundred Lisp Machines used for research in AI (Cyc), chip design, object oriented databases (ORION), ... * Xerox: Lisp Machine * SRI: AI research