Oldest Dot-com Domain Turning 30 48

Posted by Soulskill on Friday March 13, 2015 @03:57PM from the counts-as-a-digital-antique dept.

netbuzz writes: On March 15, 1985, Symbolics, Inc, maker of Lisp computers, registered the Internet's first dot-com address: Symbolics.com. Sunday will mark the 30th anniversary of that registration. And while Symbolics has been out of business for years, the address was sold in 2009 for an undisclosed sum to a speculator who said: "For us to own the first domain is very special to our company, and we feel blessed for having the ability to obtain this unique property." Today there's not much there.

Oldest Dot-com Domain Turning 30

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- - Re: (Score:2)
    
    by Kyont ( 145761 ) writes:
    
    I agree, if he could 3D print his dong
    If??? This is one of the easier files, I could have this done before cocktail hour today.
    - Re: (Score:2)
      
      by BarbaraHudson ( 3785311 ) writes:
      
      Why bother with a plastic imitation when you can get the real thing [slashdot.org]
      (that's one story submission I don't think will make the front page)
may not be much there (Score:1)

by Ralph Siegler ( 3506871 ) writes:

But this we know, it is slashdotted already
- Re: (Score:3, Funny)
  
  by Anonymous Coward writes:
  
  how symbolic
- Re: (Score:1)
  
  by Anonymous Coward writes:
  
  So go hit the wayback machine. You can see it from 1996 until 4 days ago. Amazing, huh?
Nothing there... (Score:2)

by justMichael ( 606509 ) writes:

Now that it's been /.ed
I wish I "cdr" seen it (Score:3, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Friday March 13, 2015 @04:07PM (#49252329)

nothing to see here, "car"y on...

It's been that long? (Score:5, Interesting)

by Snotnose ( 212196 ) writes: on Friday March 13, 2015 @04:17PM (#49252369)

As a sysadmin in the late 80s/early 90s I remember the joy I felt when I first installed DNS on our Sun network and could forget bang paths. For the next year or two I enjoyed the extra income I made as a consultant setting up other people with DNS. It was all a word of mouth thing (well, word of email more like), I never advertised or looked for the work (I was still in school part time, free time wasn't in my lexicon).

- Re: (Score:2)
  
  by nblender ( 741424 ) writes:
  
  My first domain was a .UUCP ... It was very refreshing not to have to use 'smail' anymore.
  - Re: (Score:2)
    
    by thogard ( 43403 ) writes:
    
    !ihnp4 ?
    - Re: (Score:2)
      
      by nblender ( 741424 ) writes:
      
      Nope,
      
      !ucbvax
- Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
  
  by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) writes: on Friday March 13, 2015 @05:35PM (#49252821)
  
  Comment removed based on user account deletion
  
  - Re: (Score:3)
    
    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) writes:
    
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  - Re: (Score:3)
    
    by rs79 ( 71822 ) writes:
    
    Nope, digital.com predates symbolics.com. NSI screwed up the dates. Check with Reid who don't forget enabled BIND by paying Vixie to write it when they were both at DECWRL.How could anyhting predate the domain of the guys that wrote the code?
    - Re: (Score:2)
      
      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) writes:
      
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
bbn.com (Score:4, Informative)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Friday March 13, 2015 @04:27PM (#49252421)

bbn.com was registered 9 days later - still around, doing the same thing - government sponsored research.

- Re: (Score:2)
  
  by bigwheel ( 2238516 ) writes:
  
  Not surprising. BBN still had Internet node-zero running on an old DEC when I interviewed there in 1987.
- Re: (Score:2)
  
  by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) writes:
  
  Comment removed based on user account deletion
- Re: (Score:2)
  
  by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) writes:
  
  Comment removed based on user account deletion
- Re: (Score:2)
  
  by thogard ( 43403 ) writes:
  
  Mine was free then. I did a dictionary search against whois and abnormal was free. I just knew I had to have it. That was close to 20 years ago.
  Anyway there will be cake for anyone who RSVPs.
Symbolics instigated the free software movement (Score:3, Interesting)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Friday March 13, 2015 @04:55PM (#49252567)

Just to remind everyone about Symbolics' place in history. Symbolics was founded by a bunch of Richard Stallman's co-workers from the MIT AI lab, and Symbolics' business tactics provided the primary motivatation for the Stallman's creation of the Free Software movement. See
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.html [gnu.org]

- Re: (Score:3)
  
  by bigwheel ( 2238516 ) writes:
  
  Symbolics was an amazing company. I was doing AI R&D for a large company back in the 80's, where we had several 3670s and 3640s. Even after all these years, I have not seen anything as robust and easy to work with as Lisp+Flavors on their Genera environment.
- Re: (Score:2)
  
  by K8Fan ( 37875 ) writes:
  
  The thing I remember most fondly about Symbolics was their 3D modeling and rendering software. Remember "Stanley and Stella in Breaking The Ice"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Oldest still held by same company is XEROX.COM (Score:5, Informative)

by alispguru ( 72689 ) writes: <bob DOT bane AT me DOT com> on Friday March 13, 2015 @05:11PM (#49252655) Journal

Number 7 on the list of oldest registered domain names [wikipedia.org].
BBN is apparently owned by Raytheon [bbn.com].
Apple.com is number 64, just under two years later. One of the benefits of getting in on the ground floor like that was big blocks of IPv4 addresses - apple.com still controls a /24 block, I think.
When did microsoft.com get created?
My personal intro to the internet was at the University of Maryland - I was there when the TAC to Ft. Meade was installed.

- Re: (Score:1)
  
  by SAH ( 191023 ) writes:
  
  One of the benefits of getting in on the ground floor like that was big blocks of IPv4 addresses - apple.com still controls a /24 block, I think.
  ...and Xerox has (or maybe had) 13/8.
- Re: (Score:2, Informative)
  
  by Anonymous Coward writes:
  
  /24 is *SMALL*
  Try /8
  NetRange: 17.0.0.0 - 17.255.255.255
  CIDR: 17.0.0.0/8
  NetName: APPLE-WWNET
  NetHandle: NET-17-0-0-0-1
  Parent: ()
  NetType: Direct Assignment
  OriginAS:
  Organization: Apple Inc. (APPLEC-1-Z)
  RegDate: 1990-04-16
  Updated: 2012-04-02
  Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-17-0-0-0-1
SYMBOLICS IS NOT THE FIRST DOT COM (Score:5, Informative)

by rs79 ( 71822 ) writes: <hostmaster@open-rsc.org> on Friday March 13, 2015 @06:22PM (#49253175) Homepage

Everyone gets this wrong.
BIND was written at Digital when Brian Reid looked at Mockapetris spec and got Vixie to take the Berkeley B-Tree code and produce BIND.
Now what do you suppose the chances are that he didn't bother to grab digital.com? How bout zero? If you guessed that, you deserve a cookie.
Reid has the nic receipt for digital.com and it predates symbolics.com. February vs. March, NSI screwed up the dates in one of their transitions.
Ref: Brian Reid. Ask him yourself. This was explained on one of the domain mailing lists during the DNS wars.

- Still 5 Months Until... (Score:2)
  
  by rHBa ( 976986 ) writes:
  
  porn.com turns 20.
- Re: (Score:1)
  
  by bkk_diesel ( 812298 ) writes:
  
  According to the information posted at digital.com [slashdot.org]:
  In 1985, Digital became the fifth company ever to register a .com domain name when they purchased dec.com. In 1993 they also registered digital.com, and became the world’s first computer vendor to open a public website on October 1 of that year.
Free domains (Score:2)

by tompaulco ( 629533 ) writes:

Ah yes, back in those days, registering a domain was free and you could find domains that actually related to your business.
Not the oldest Dotcom (Score:1)

by Anonymous Coward writes:

Kim Dotcom is 41 QED.
Remember how .coms were treated back then? (Score:2)

by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) writes:

I remember how SOME people treated .com domains back then. They'd refuse to route traffic for them, blackhole emails, and generally be little bitches about it. Why? Because .com meant TEH CAPITLIZM!!@#! OMG NOES and the internet was a strict non-.commercial zone. Anyone else remember the good old days before the WWW?

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Oldest Dot-com Domain Turning 30 48

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Oldest Dot-com Domain Turning 30

Re: (Score:2)

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may not be much there (Score:1)

Re: (Score:3, Funny)

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Nothing there... (Score:2)

I wish I "cdr" seen it (Score:3, Funny)

It's been that long? (Score:5, Interesting)

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Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

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Re: (Score:2)

bbn.com (Score:4, Informative)

Re: (Score:2)

Re: (Score:2)

Re: (Score:2)

Re: (Score:2)

Symbolics instigated the free software movement (Score:3, Interesting)

Re: (Score:3)

Re: (Score:2)

Oldest still held by same company is XEROX.COM (Score:5, Informative)

Re: (Score:1)

Re: (Score:2, Informative)

SYMBOLICS IS NOT THE FIRST DOT COM (Score:5, Informative)

Still 5 Months Until... (Score:2)

Re: (Score:1)

Free domains (Score:2)

Not the oldest Dotcom (Score:1)

Remember how .coms were treated back then? (Score:2)

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