Oldest Domain Names • Hacker News Board

Re: Oldest Domain Names

#31

Post by columbo » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 5:23 PM UTC

kilroy123 wrote: post #29

Why was stargate.com registered in August 5, 1986, and what was that for? The movie and show didn't come out for another 9-10 years.

It's a pretty common sci-fi term and books have been named it as early as 1958. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_(disambiguation)?1=1

Re: Oldest Domain Names

#32

Post by wiml » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 5:24 PM UTC

TwistedWeasel wrote: post #4

No Microsoft.com? Late to the party?

Microsoft took quite a while to start paying attention to this hippie / academic Internet thing. They were pretty late to the party.

Re: Oldest Domain Names

#33

Post by cmbaus » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 5:28 PM UTC

Seeing Adobe as one of the oldest domain names is disappointing. They were perfectly positioned to take advantage of the growth of they internet, but were never able to capitalize. The company has really stagnated in the past 15 years.

Re: Oldest Domain Names

#34

Post by cromulent » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 5:32 PM UTC

kilroy123 wrote: post #29

Why was stargate.com registered in August 5, 1986, and what was that for? The movie and show didn't come out for another 9-10 years.

Stargate was a datacenter company, bought by MDH a few years ago and is now owned by Latisys. The domain name has been passed along.

Re: Oldest Domain Names

#35

Post by ethomson » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 5:32 PM UTC

jonnathanson wrote: post #10

How many of these have been in continuous ownership since first being registered? I'm sure quite a few of them have, but I'd be curious. (For example, I'd have a hard time believing that "Marble.com" is the same entity today that it was 30 years ago, and WhoIs info goes back only so far).

Interesting question. I'm relatively certain that cayman.com, for example, was Cayman Systems, so that has obviously turned over. But many of these companies (and thus, domains) have simply been acquired. SCO.com was SCO who was once a legitimate company. kai.com was Kuck and Associates, acquired by Intel's compiler group several years ago.

The big surprise to me is that they're not all just tech companies. In a sea of domain names that built the internet sits... Alcoa!?

Re: Oldest Domain Names

#36

Post by slaven » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 5:33 PM UTC

kahirsch wrote: post #26

jobigoud wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E-mail addresses are case sensitive.

Theoretically, this could be true. Are there any email systems that are actually case-sensitive?

Yes, a lot of older systems (non-Unix) were case sensitive.

Re: Oldest Domain Names

#37

Post by icedchai » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 5:43 PM UTC

clone1018 wrote: post #16

sionronin wrote: post #6

What was registering a domain name like in 1986-87?

I'm going to guess expensive and full of paperwork.

Expensive? Domains were free up until at least 1995.

Re: Oldest Domain Names

#38

Post by jere » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 5:45 PM UTC

I had no clue domains were available before I was born... that's quite a strange thought. For some reason, I was thinking they wouldn't have been around before the web.

A dumb question, but what exactly would you do with a domain name before 1990? Email is all I can think of.

Re: Oldest Domain Names

#39

Post by eli » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 5:47 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #28

IgorPartola wrote: post #11

Why are there so many of them that share dates of registration?

Probably because Jon Postal batched up requests and entered them all at the same time, rather than entering them as soon as the requests came in.

If I recall you used to have to fax a form in on company letterhead to confirm your domain registration.

Re: Oldest Domain Names

#40

Post by epc » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 5:51 PM UTC

hebleb wrote: post #25

Interesting that think.com is owned by Oracle instead of IBM

When IBM "woke up" to the Internet in 1990, think.com was registered by Thinking Machines. When TM folded in 1994(?) we (IBM) were still just getting an Internet group together and I don't think it occurred to any of us to grab think.com (if it was even available).