Ask HN: What is your oldest living public presence on the internet? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is your oldest living public presence on the internet?

4 pointsschmudde8 comments

I'd love for people to share links to their oldest remaining presence on the internet - outside of archives.

For me it may be this review of an album released in 1998 by Wrapped in Wire magazine: https://www.wrappedinwire.com/V/Vojna.htm.

For this exercise, should Usenet on Google Groups qualify? That's difficult to say. It's "living" because you can still reply to it, but these messages are no longer part of the living Usenet. Here is a reply I wrote on Aug 9, 1998: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.music.industrial/pseJluJPys4/dx5fvt8roXgJ.

If there is a legitimate timestamp for the link you share, that's even better.

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I have various posts available on archives dating back to 1994, possibly 1992, but not sure they qualify as "living". Certainly they exist and can be read.

Edit: OK, I've found a post on sci.math from 1993 to which you can apparently reply

Edit 2: OK:

Jul 1993: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sci.math/VfqtjzqD5vk/_I2qHiT...

Jun 1993: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sci.math/sM5obXgILLg/WSMskMV...

Apr 1993: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sci.math/pDjjVvQiQts/umBn0h2...

Indeed, there is some controversy, but many have identified this post as the 'oldest on the net' and couldn't resist the urge to reply: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/net.general/yJn8WHlzc7...

I guess it's motivated by the same urge people have when the decide to etch their names into the Colosseum in Rome.

The first time I used the internet was around summer of 1998 at the tender age of 6 years old, mostly to use instant messenger with my cousins. Well before that I also used WebTV to write emails, but anyway...

As for information written by me that is publicly preserved somewhere, I have a feeling that is actually a considerable amount of time later, likely around 2001 or 2002 when I started posting on random paintball forums, ebaumsworld forums, xbox forums. I'd also uploaded some videos on Putfile by that time.

So I guess it's time to celebrate my 20 year internet anniversary soon :)

Ha, found this on the wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/19990224155732/http://www.coastl... A site a friend and I made for a popular local band in 1997. We loved music, and the internet gave us a reason to talk to all the bands we loved and see if they wanted one of these new-fangled web sites. It was awesome!

That is awesome. It's too bad the Wayback Machine doesn't archive those .wav files from 1997.

Usenet seems like a good place to look, and I can go back to Dec 4, 1999 that way: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sci.math/r9pz4ScvUxg/x8p6V02...

Someone named "Nathaniel Silver" replied, and I wonder if that's the political and sports forecaster or someone else of the same name.

"Good job, Mike. Your post not only solves the problem but also makes the rest of the posters look like defensive hotshots."

Hah - don't mess with Nate.

Mine's probably this question (and fabulous answer) on sci.math.numerical-analysis in 1999

https://groups.google.com/g/sci.math.num-analysis/c/2j8pg4NV...

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