You can get an idea of front page by using https://news.ycombinator.com/front
> Front page stories from today so far, ordered by time spent there.
> To see other days, add a day to the above URL in yyyy-mm-dd format. Example: front?day=2016-06-20.
> Front page stories from today so far, ordered by time spent there.
> To see other days, add a day to the above URL in yyyy-mm-dd format. Example: front?day=2016-06-20.
But not to find out what HN was like initially (which was the GP's concern); try a date before 2014-11-11 and you get "We don't have this data before 2014-11-11."