12 Jan
2005
12 Jan
'05
12:16 a.m.
http://news.com.com/Disk+drives+to+stop+shrinking/2100-1004_3-5532612.html?…
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12 Jan
12 Jan
2:26 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
Something's been bothering me since I read it.
In the newspaper's el-cheapo weekend supplement*
it stated that:
Registered Internet Domain names, 2005: 63 million,
which is believable, but then said
Registered Internet Domain names, 1985: 6.
This doesn't seem right. 200 I'd believe, but not 6.
20 companies and 60 Universities I'd believe, not 6.
I first saw the Internet in use in 1985, at Calma's research lab.
Many people there used it all the time. It seemed that they could
get a lot of content. Again I'd say 6 is B*S*.
Anybody know when it really was 6 and for extra credit what
those original domain names were?
John A.
* USA Weekend, 31-Dec-2004, p.7
http://www.usaweekend.com/05_issues/050102/050102usaw_anniv_list.html
2:45 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
Check out the "1985" section here:
http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/
--- John Allain <allain(a)panix.com> wrote:
Something's been bothering me since I read it.
In the newspaper's el-cheapo weekend supplement*
it stated that:
Registered Internet Domain names, 2005: 63 million,
which is believable, but then said
Registered Internet Domain names, 1985: 6.
This doesn't seem right. 200 I'd believe, but not 6.
20 companies and 60 Universities I'd believe, not 6.
I first saw the Internet in use in 1985, at Calma's research lab.
Many people there used it all the time. It seemed that they could
get a lot of content. Again I'd say 6 is B*S*.
Anybody know when it really was 6 and for extra credit what
those original domain names were?
John A.
* USA Weekend, 31-Dec-2004, p.7
http://www.usaweekend.com/05_issues/050102/050102usaw_anniv_list.html
=====
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-- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us
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4 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote:
Check out the "1985" section here:
http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/
It's neat to know that the "first registered domain" is still around,
albeit in a much lesser form of its former glory:
http://www.symbolics.com/
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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2:53 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
Registered Internet Domain names, 1985: 6.
Define what "Registered Internet Domain name" means with respect to
1985 and that might mean something. (And it might be a true thing or a
false thing, but at least we could sensibly discuss which.) Since the
DNS as we know it today did not exist in 1985 (RFCs 1034 and 1035 are
dated 1987), it's not clear what this is trying to say, which makes it
impossible to tell whether it's true.
There was an earlier form of DNS which existed in 1985; RFCs 882 and
883, which 1034 and 1035 replace, are dated 1983. To what extent this
means that "Internet Domain names" existed in 1985 is...questionable,
at the very least - never mind what "registered" would mean. I do note
that 883 has a big warning at the beginning saying that it is not not
NOT a spec for implementation.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
1:31 p.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
At 10:53 AM 1/12/2005, you wrote:
There was an earlier form of DNS which existed in 1985;
RFCs 882 and
883, which 1034 and 1035 replace, are dated 1983.
In as much as I'd love to see my alma-dropout-mater credited,
I'd love to see a better history of DNS's development. These Internet
timelines are endlessly copied and repeated without attribution
or citations. Useless!
Most of them say that DNS was first developed at UW-Madison (or
I should say "the University of Wisconsin", which is sort of
like the way people say someone's from the "East Coast" when
they really mean "New York City".)
Paul Mockapetris' name is on RFC 882. His bio doesn't say Madison:
http://www.nominum.com/bio.php?id=2
Here's an interview:
http://www.theregister.com/2003/06/24/dns_creator_considers_the_internets/
But I think the timelines must be referring to some previous DNS-like
incarnation, perhaps a spin-off of some other project. I have vague
memories of gasping in awe at 1+ meg net-wide 'hosts' files circa 1983
on VAXes running Unix at UW-Madison.
The citations in those RFCs mention "The Design of the CSNET Name
Server", with one of the authors being UW-Madison's Larry Landweber:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~lhl/
but even this bio doesn't claim a stake in DNS, at least directly.
- John
(Just old enough to have had business cards with bang notation
for my email address.)
13 Jan
13 Jan
3:41 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote:
In as much as I'd love to see my
alma-dropout-mater credited,
I'd love to see a better history of DNS's development. These Internet
timelines are endlessly copied and repeated without attribution
or citations. Useless!
Agreed! Too many people tend to rely on single sources they find on the
internet that are either outdated or were horribly wrong to begin with,
eventually leading to the search engines being saturated with links to the
original work itself or derivatives. Very frustrating.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
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12 Jan
12 Jan
3:26 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
On Wed, 2005-01-12 at 11:26 -0500, John Allain wrote:
Something's been bothering me since I read it.
In the newspaper's el-cheapo weekend supplement*
it stated that:
Registered Internet Domain names, 2005: 63 million,
which is believable, but then said
Registered Internet Domain names, 1985: 6.
Are they confusing 6 registered names with 6 official top-level domains
or something along those lines? (my knowledge of the Internet prior to
the early 90's is pretty much non-existant, so that's a pure guess)
cheers
Jules
3:30 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
"John Allain" wrote:
Anybody know when it really was 6 and for extra credit what
those original domain names were?
I registered cayman.com in '87 and it's now it's in the "first
100".
So 6 in '85 does not seem completely out of whack.
I suspect symbolics.com was the first ".com" but I don't really know.
You can guess who the first .edu's were - just look at an old arpanet map.
(yes, there I was, sitting on my horse - in '87 - watching the prairie
grass blow and wondering what the *hell* those long iron rails were
for... little did I know they would bring 63 million settlers! :-)
-brad
4:10 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
Brad Parker wrote:
I suspect symbolics.com was the first ".com"
but I don't really know.
DEC likes to be the first one. Check:
http://research.microsoft.com/~gbell/Digital/timeline/compaq-d.htm
It was 1985
cheers
4:49 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, emanuel stiebler wrote:
Brad Parker wrote:
$ whois symbolics.com
Registrant:
Symbolics Technology, Inc (SYMBOLICS-DOM)
c/o Ropes & Gray
C.I. Armistead 1 International
Place
Boston, MA 02110-2624
US
Domain Name: SYMBOLICS.COM
Administrative Contact:
Schmidt, David (DSW796) dkschmidt(a)COMPUSERVE.COM
Symbolics, Inc
P.O. Box 10862
BURKE, VA 22009
US
(703) 455-0430 fax: (703) 440-0388
Technical Contact:
Network Solutions, LLC. (HOST-ORG)
customerservice(a)networksolutions.com
13200 Woodland Park Drive
Herndon, VA 20171-3025
US
1-888-642-9675 fax: 571-434-4620
Record expires on 16-Mar-2007.
I suspect symbolics.com was the first
".com" but I don't really know.
DEC likes to be the first one. Check:
http://research.microsoft.com/~gbell/Digital/timeline/compaq-d.htm
It was 1985 >>Record created on 15-Mar-1985.
Database last updated on 12-Jan-2005 13:48:18 EST.
OK
$ whois dec.com
Registrant:
Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.P
(DOM-134233)
2055 State Highway 249 Houston
TX
77070 US
Domain Name: dec.com
Registrar Name: Alldomains.com
Registrar Whois: whois.alldomains.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.alldomains.com
Administrative Contact:
Compaq Computer Corporation
(NIC-344520)
Compaq Internet Domain Name Registrar
20555 State Highway 249 Houston
TX
77070 US
domainreg(a)compaq.com +1.2815188427 Fax- -
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Center Network Operations
(NIC-398252)
Alldomains.com
1800 Sutter St.
Suite 100 Concord
CA
94520 US
hostmaster(a)alldomains.com +1.9256859600 Fax- +1.9256859620
>> Created on..............: 1985-Sep-30.
Expires on..............: 2009-Sep-29.
Record last updated on..: 2003-Nov-07 20:32:13.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
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8:04 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
BBN.COM, 24 April 1985. They umm made the IMPs.
Like all such things it's a false question kinda. The implication
is that before this "six domains" there wasn't an internet, but
it's a false measure. In The Beginning was the HOSTS file. It
still exists, vestigially, on unix /etc/hosts.
When N is small, listing all the hosts in a single file is the
thing to do. When N > annoyance you look around for a new solution
(or someone to blame, if you are in a large corporation).
13 Jan
13 Jan
10:36 p.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
>>
>> Like all such things it's a false question kinda. The
>> implication is that before this "six domains" there wasn't
>> an internet, but it's a false measure. In The Beginning was
>> the HOSTS file. It still exists, vestigially, on unix /etc/hosts.
>>
And also eexists on Windows boxes.....
12 Jan
12 Jan
5:28 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
emanuel stiebler wrote:
Brad Parker wrote:
heh. Mr. Bell should have run a "whois" :-)
or, more likely, no one at DEC concidered Symbolics a computer company.
symbolics.com 3/15/85
dec.com 9/30/85
-brad
I suspect symbolics.com was the first
".com" but I don't really know.
DEC likes to be the first one. Check:
http://research.microsoft.com/~gbell/Digital/timeline/compaq-d.htm 
6:22 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
On Jan 12, 2005, at 12:30 PM, Brad Parker wrote:
(yes, there I was, sitting on my horse - in '87 -
watching the prairie
grass blow and wondering what the *hell* those long iron rails were
for... little did I know they would bring 63 million settlers! :-)
I remember thinking back then... "someone should snarf london.com, or
japan.com... might be worth something one day". I never did get around
to it, even after 1991/1992 when it was clear the web was starting to
take off.
10:26 p.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote:
On Jan 12, 2005, at 12:30 PM, Brad Parker wrote:
I registered 'american.com' in um, 95 an it caused a bit of a stir :-)
seems the folks at american university (american.edu) didn't like that
(but hey, the company was called 'american internet' so it seemed
natural).
(I know the whois says 98 but the original registration was way before that)
This was before the namespace land grab - once that started no one
looked back.
In the end no one really cared and I didn't make any money off the name.
It's now held by a large corporation who will probably do nothing with
it. hi ho.
-brad
(yes, there I was, sitting on my horse - in
'87 - watching the prairie
grass blow and wondering what the *hell* those long iron rails were
for... little did I know they would bring 63 million settlers! :-)
I remember thinking back then... "someone should snarf london.com, or
japan.com... might be worth something one day". I never did get around
to it, even after 1991/1992 when it was clear the web was starting to
take off.
13 Jan
13 Jan
3:23 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
On Jan 13, 2005, at 7:26 AM, Brad Parker wrote:
I registered 'american.com' in um, 95 an it
caused a bit of a stir :-)
seems the folks at american university (american.edu) didn't like that
(but hey, the company was called 'american internet' so it seemed
natural).
My recent win was getting ebt.com, which is a company that I used to
work at, and whose assets (some of them anyway), we now own. The whois
on that is 93... EBT was one of the founding members of the W3C, and I
wanted to preserve the time stamp.
17 Jan
17 Jan
12:45 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote:
I registered Linux.com and Linux.net in early
94. And yes, those
caused a stir, both and the time, and much later :)
At that time, I was working at a startup in Mississippi (yes..), and
later "moved in" with InfoMagic, where we decided to move operations
I registered
'american.com' in um, 95 an it caused a bit of a stir :-)
seems the folks at american university (american.edu) didn't like that
(but hey, the company was called 'american internet' so it seemed
natural).
My recent win was getting ebt.com, which is a company that I used to
work at, and whose assets (some of them anyway), we now own. The whois
on that is 93... EBT was one of the founding members of the W3C, and I
wanted to preserve the time stamp. from NJ to AZ. Since I was bored, I decided to put our
T1's to better
use, and started up our ISP-part of the business, which we
sort-of
had even in mid-1992, albeit off a 56K switched circuit using a NeXT
as a shell box.
--f
13 Jan
13 Jan
3:54 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Brad Parker wrote:
I registered 'american.com' in um, 95 an it
caused a bit of a stir :-)
seems the folks at american university (american.edu) didn't like that
(but hey, the company was called 'american internet' so it seemed
natural).
(I know the whois says 98 but the original registration was way before that)
This was before the namespace land grab - once that started no one
looked back.
In the end no one really cared and I didn't make any money off the name.
It's now held by a large corporation who will probably do nothing with
it. hi ho.
I rarely let go of any domain names anymore if anything just to keep them
out of the hands of the losers that scoop them up after you abandon them
so they can leech off of whatever links you managed to get to your
website (i.e. check out the useless losers at vcf.org). I hate those
fuckers.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
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12 Jan
12 Jan
8:46 a.m.
New subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!?
John wrote:
Something's been bothering me since I read it.
In the newspaper's el-cheapo weekend supplement*
it stated that:
Registered Internet Domain names, 2005: 63 million,
which is believable, but then said
Registered Internet Domain names, 1985: 6.
This doesn't seem right. 200 I'd believe, but not 6.
20 companies and 60 Universities I'd believe, not 6.
The DNS spec (RFC 882 and 883) wasn't published until
November 1983, and it took a while for DNS to replace
the old hosts files. In 1985 there were still many
sites that weren't yet using DNS. Even so, 6 does
sound too low even for 1-Jan-1985.
7231
days inactive
7236
days old
20 comments
13 participants
participants (13)
-
allain＠panix.com -
brad＠heeltoe.com -
dvcorbin＠optonline.net -
emu＠ecubics.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
gtn＠rbii.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
news＠computercollector.com -
tomj＠wps.com -
vcf＠siconic.com -
waltje＠pdp11.nl