Last Friday, Symbolics.com, the internet’s first ever domain name, celebrated its 28th birthday. The domain name was originally registered on 15 March 1985, for the company Symbolics, Inc. The computer manufacturer with headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, designed and produced Lisp Machines.

The single-user computer that ran on the Lisp programming language was the first commercial “workstation” before workstations had even been named. Symbolics was started by the MIT AI Lab staffers and associates to manufacture the Lisp machines and became a pioneer of computer development.

Today’s Symbolics.com

Although the company still exists today, it’s no longer a front-runner in the computer world and is now supported mainly by remaining service contracts.

Symbolics.com is no longer used by the company’s which changed its name to symbolics-dk.com in 2009 when it was sold to XF.com Investments for an unrevealed amount.

What the new domain’s owner says about the original

The website’s main business is acquiring leading domain names and developing them into useful web properties.The company’s head, Aron Meystadt, now uses Symbolics.com as a personal blog which includes a page about the history of the domain and how he came to buy it.

On the site, he explains  “It was a goal of mine to acquire one of the first few names ever registered.” and stated that “For me, personally, I am excited (and honored) to hold the first .com ever registered. Since domain names are my business, I am happy to be the owner of this fantastic piece of Internet history. My aspirations are to continue to post relevant e-business advice and to give proper credit where it’s due to the original Symbolics Computer Corporation, who had the foresight to be the first to realize the potential of the Internet â€" way back in 1985.”

So to the World’s first domain name ever, Happy belated Birthday.

[Image via symbolics-dks]