August 2009

The First Domain Name Ever Registered – Symbolics.com sold

Posted By: Santossh Ram Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 10:54 am

The first registered  .com domain Symbolics.com, on the 15th of March 1985 by the Massachusetts-based computer manufacturer Symbolics was sold to a domain investing company named  XF.com Investments.

It is the first time this domain changed ownership in  its 25 years history.

Symbolics refers to two companies: now-defunct computer manufacturer Symbolics, Inc., and a privately held company that acquired the assets of the former company and continues to sell and maintain the Open Genera Lisp system and the Macsyma computer algebra system.

The symbolics.com domain was originally registered on 15 March 1985, making it the oldest active .com-domain in the world.  The current Symbolics web site is available at symbolics-dks.com.

As quickly as the commercial AI boom of the mid 1980s had propelled Symbolics to success, the “AI Winter” of the late 1980s and early 1990s, combined with the slow down of Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile defense program, for which DARPA had invested heavily in AI solutions, severely damaged Symbolics. An internal war between Noftsker and the CEO the board had hired in 1986, Brian Sear, over whether to follow Sun’s suggested lead and focus on selling their software, or to re-emphasize their superior hardware, and the ensuing lack of focus when both Noftsker and Sear were fired from the company caused sales to plummet. This fact, combined with some ill-advised real estate deals by company management during the boom years (they had entered into large long-term lease obligations in California), drove Symbolics into bankruptcy. Rapid evolution in mass-market microprocessor technology (the “PC revolution”), advances in Lisp compiler technology, and the economics of manufacturing custom microprocessors severely diminished the commercial advantages of purpose-built Lisp machines. By 1995, the Lispmachine era had ended, and with it Symbolics’ hopes for success.

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