The Internet domain game has been going strong for over 20 years. Have you ever thought back and wondered what some of the first domain registrations were? Surprisingly the first domain name ever registered was symbolics.com. Below you will find the list of the first 100 domain names registered. If only you were able to predict at that time how vast the internet would expand you could have made loads of money. Simple three letter domain names now sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's no surprise that the first 100 list is compromised of many large corporations as it surely cost more than $1.99 to register a domain name in the 1980's. Interestingly Microsoft.com isn't part of the list as it was not registered until May 1991.
1. symbolics.com: March 15, 1985
2. bbn.com: April 24, 1985
3. think.com: May 24, 1985
4. mcc.com: July 11, 1985
5. dec.com: Sept. 30, 1985
6. northrop.com: Nov. 7, 1985
7. xerox.com: Jan. 9, 1986
8. sri.com: Jan. 17, 1986
9. hp.com: March 3, 1986
10. bellcore.com: March 5, 1986
11. ibm.com: March 19, 1986
12. sun.com: March 19, 1986
13. intel.com: March 25, 1986
14. ti.com: March 25, 1986
15. att.com: April 25, 1986
16. gmr.com: May 8, 1986
17. tek.com: May 8, 1986
18. fmc.com: July 10, 1986
19. ub.com: July 10, 1986
20. bell-atl.com: Aug. 5, 1986
21. ge.com: Aug. 5, 1986
22. grebyn.com: Aug. 5, 1986
23. isc.com: Aug. 5, 1986
24. nsc.com: Aug. 5, 1986
25. stargate.com: Aug. 5, 1986
26. boeing.com: Sept. 2, 1986
27. itcorp.com: Sept. 18, 1986
28. siemens.com: Sept. 29, 1986
29. pyramid.com: Oct. 18, 1986
30. alphacdc.com: Oct. 27, 1986
31. bdm.com: Oct. 27, 1986
32. fluke.com: Oct. 27, 1986
33. inmet.com: Oct. 27, 1986
34. kesmai.com: Oct. 27, 1986
35. mentor.com: Oct. 27, 1986
36. nec.com: Oct. 27, 1986
37. ray.com: Oct. 27, 1986
38. rosemount.com: Oct. 27, 1986
39. vortex.com: Oct. 27, 1986
40. alcoa.com: Nov. 5, 1986
41. gte.com: Nov. 5, 1986
42. adobe.com: Nov. 17, 1986
43. amd.com: Nov. 17, 1986
44. das.com: Nov. 17, 1986
45. data-io.com: Nov. 17, 1986
46. octopus.com: Nov. 17, 1986
47. portal.com: Nov. 17, 1986
48. teltone.com: Nov. 17, 1986
49. 3com.com: Dec. 11, 1986
50. amdahl.com: Dec. 11, 1986
51. ccur.com: Dec. 11, 1986
52. ci.com: Dec. 11, 1986
53. convergent.com: Dec. 11, 1986
54. dg.com: Dec. 11, 1986
55. peregrine.com: Dec. 11, 1986
56. quad.com: Dec. 11, 1986
57. sq.com: Dec. 11, 1986
58. tandy.com: Dec. 11, 1986
59. tti.com: Dec. 11, 1986
60. unisys.com: Dec. 11, 1986
61. cgi.com: Jan. 19, 1987
62. cts.com: Jan. 19, 1987
63. spdcc.com: Jan. 19, 1987
64. apple.com: Feb. 19, 1987
65. nma.com: March 4, 1987
66. prime.com: March 4, 1987
67. philips.com: April 4, 1987
68. datacube.com: April 23, 1987
69. kai.com: April 23, 1987
70. tic.com: April 23, 1987
71. vine.com: April 23, 1987
72. ncr.com: April 30, 1987
73. cisco.com: May 14, 1987
74. rdl.com: May 14, 1987
75. slb.com: May 20, 1987
76. parcplace.com: May 27, 1987
77. utc.com: May 27, 1987
78. ide.com: June 26, 1987
79. trw.com: July 9, 1987
80. unipress.com: July 13, 1987
81. dupont.com: July 27, 1987
82. lockheed.com: July 27, 1987
83. rosetta.com: July 28, 1987
84. toad.com: Aug. 18, 1987
85. quick.com: Aug. 31, 1987
86. allied.com: Sept. 3, 1987
87. dsc.com: Sept. 3, 1987
88. sco.com: Sept. 3, 1987
89. gene.com: Sept. 22, 1987
90. kccs.com: Sept. 22, 1987
91. spectra.com: Sept. 22, 1987
92. wlk.com: Sept. 22, 1987
93. mentat.com: Sept. 30, 1987
94. wyse.com: Oct. 14, 1987
95. cfg.com: Nov. 2, 1987
96. marble.com: Nov. 9, 1987
97. cayman.com: Nov. 16, 1987
98. entity.com: Nov. 16, 1987
99. ksr.com: Nov. 24, 1987
100. nynexst.com: Nov. 30, 1987
Its also funny how some of those sites (like number 1 symbolics.com) is still designed for the original text based browsing with minimal colors and images lol...
Last edited by Pc_Madness on 04 Jan 2009 - 22:04
15 September 1975
Indeed, they didn't "get it" until late in the game. My understanding is that even the first edition of Gates' "The Road Ahead", which came out in 95 (with Billy Boy making all sorts of predictions), makes no mention of the internet whatsoever.
Didn't see it coming at all.
...unless MS was like 101 lol
I was 8 in 1985, that's my excuse.
Hes talking about what it looks like though... and yeah, I would have to agree
I remember when the first few @microsoft.com people started showing up in some Usenet groups - volunteering pioneers with no "official mission". We, the endusers, asked why Microsoft did not have any Internet presence, especially why there was no Microsoft ftp server to download patches and updates from. Back then, Microsoft provided those on their BBS system and I think on CompuServe - both FAR too expensive to use from Europe. The Microsoft people responded that they were internally pushing for more Internet presence, and ultimately succeeded in getting ftp.microsoft.com started. However, that only remained a "pet project" while Microsoft still believed in proprietary online services and pursued the "MSN Network". It wasn't until 1994 when Microsoft realized that the Internet was the future and got started on www.microsoft.com and IE...
I remember when the first few @microsoft.com people started showing up in some Usenet groups - volunteering pioneers with no "official mission". We, the endusers, asked why Microsoft did not have any Internet presence, especially why there was no Microsoft ftp server to download patches and updates from. Back then, Microsoft provided those on their BBS system and I think on CompuServe - both FAR too expensive to use from Europe. The Microsoft people responded that they were internally pushing for more Internet presence, and ultimately succeeded in getting ftp.microsoft.com started. However, that only remained a "pet project" while Microsoft still believed in proprietary online services and pursued the "MSN Network". It wasn't until 1994 when Microsoft realized that the Internet was the future and got started on www.microsoft.com and IE...
Yup BBS was hottest thing in thoses good old days and even in US it was FAR too expensive
yeah, that's 'old school'
i never got online at all til about 1995 ( i was using Windows 3.11 at the time along with AOL as a internet service
Is there an echo in here? That same comment has been posted twice already in this very thread.
1) for "domains" read ".com domains". Here are some others - shame the lists for other gTLDs are quite bare...
2) for "ever registered" read "still registered". The same list! - Although, admittedly, they could be identical by coincidence: most of those brands still exist, and those that don't may still be being sat jealously upon by the IP-troll lawyers of whatever company bought them out
Still an interesting read, anyway: I like how Sun and IBM, followed by Intel and Texas Instruments (who I guess were closer to being direct competitors in those days), registered on the same day! In both cases, I wonder who was first?
youd be rich!
You guys should check out the video walkthrough tour of that place - that's one hell of a datacenter!
Why bother with sex.com when everything was text based, unless you had ASCII porn.
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.