Slashdot Mirror
A Brief History of Slashdot Part 1, Chips & Dips
In the summer of 1997 I was contacted by a stranger out of the blue with a kind of random offer. During the previous school year Nate Oostendorp (who now works with SourceForge, Inc. while working on his Masters) had coded a Space Invaders clone. He wrote a Java sprite library, and I wrote the game and illustrated the alien armada. This guy had an old DEC Alpha Multia 166, and a client that wanted to remake the game with popcorn instead of aliens. So I drew the popcorn up, replaced the gifs, and he mailed me my first non x86 box since the 286 I got in middle school. (Later Sun sent me legal threats forcing me to take the game offline since it was called Java Invaders, and clearly this was an evil crime against the universe. My hatred for Java has never died since that moment.)
I immediately installed Red Hat on it. I was working at an ad agency called The Image Group at the time as a webmaster. I coded whatever needed doing and handled various admin tasks to keep their clients happy. At the time they needed full control over email addresses on the domains they built. Since they shared their mailserver with their ISP, there were frequent name collisions -- if the client wanted bob@theirdomain.com but there already was a bob on the system, they couldn't do it. They agreed to let me move my little Alpha onto their network to host their email... and I could use it to fart around with on my personal hobbies.
I named the box Ariel. It sat under my desk. I learned enough Perl to write a stupid simple CMS to replace the functionality of Chips & Dips, which up until that point was just a text file. Dave DeMaagd wrote a simple comment system. Since we both had a long history with BBSes, it seemed obvious to us that there needed to be a discussion system. There were no user accounts -- you entered whatever name you wanted each time you posted. If you left it blank, it auto-filled the space with the name 'Anonymous Coward', a title that stuck and spread throughout the net.
The original system was written in Perl because I wanted to learn more Perl. All the data storage was flat text files. (We lost most of the original stories during a data import a year or so later) The files were named like 0000001.shtml and so forth and were all rendered at time of page request. Best of all, since the system was written as a CGI, the whole script needed to be compiled every time there was a page request. It was months before I ported the whole thing to use MySQL and mod_Perl.
I registered the domain name Slashdot.org as a joke. It was 'org' because I didn't want a .com -- those were so common. I always thought org would be cooler, and besides, I had no commercial plans in mind. (Years later this bit me on the ass since someone else registered the .com. Doh!) The URL was meant to be unpronounceable by anyone -- a joke ultimately that has backfired on me countless times when I'm called and asked what the URL is to the damn thing. Jeff 'Hemos' Bates (now a VP of something or other with SourceForge, Inc.) was in the living room when I was registering the domain name. We all wanted email addresses with a unique domain name that wasn't attached to our school, so he chipped in on the registration fee.
When it came time to design the website's look, I took elements from a theme we had designed at The Image Group -- Paul Hart and I spent hours on it -- that was supposed to be the new website for the company, but it was passed on for another look. I still liked it, so I redesigned it more to my personal aesthetics (choosing #006666 as the dominant green replacing an earth tone green) and putting drop shadows all over everything (a habit I still haven't broken, and for which I am still mocked). Within days, most of the design elements you see on Slashdot were in place... the curves, the greens, the polls, the vertical list of stories so common in 2007, and, of course, discussions on each story.
And Slashdot was born. At first it had just a few thousand daily readers migrating over from Chips & Dips, but in a matter of weeks it had grown so fast that we started really having fun with it. One night we put up a poll asking how many shots Kurt 'The Pope' DeMaagd should drink. (Kurt later became our defacto HR man when we formed Blockstackers... today he is a professor at MSU.) But that night, Slashdot readers told him to take a dozen shots of alcohol -- he failed, but he tried.
I remember around the same time just watching 'tail -f' on the access_log. My world was rocked over and over again as I watched the domain names... mit.com! ibm.com! redhat.com! Hell, even microsoft.com kept scrolling through the log. I knew we had something... people from around the world, from the highest institutions in the land, from the biggest companies in the tech sector and to the most influential in the Linux world were all reading Slashdot. In fact, they were posting comments... as were a lot of people. It became commonplace to see hundreds of comments on stories, and the so-called 'Slashdot Effect' slowly grew into our lexicon as site after site buckled under our links.
In those days the content was a lot more personal then it is today. Stories would frequently refer to alcohol-related activities. I'd constantly mention that I had to leave to go to class so there wouldn't be more stories posted for a few hours. And when a professor in my pottery class assigned homework of to mass produce and sell some pottery as a lesson in being a commercial artist, I posted it, and ended up getting over 100 requests to buy my shitty mugs (all glazed teal ;) In the end I never did sell them -- I fulfilled the assignment locally. I think I still have one of those mugs left but I'm not sure- over the years my mediocre ceramics have been filtered out of a home increasingly tastefully decorated by my wife.
I continued to go to class and work my part time job. Ariel soon had loads so great that the machine was unusable during the day. And occasionally I would accidentally kick it and knock out a cable, bringing the machine offline. Soon after it saturated the office T1, I started realizing that there was no way I was going to be able to do this as "Just" a hobby. Essentially, every second of my life was consumed without time for a break. I'd go to class -- and often just work on Slashdot in the back row. (This was the first year we had computers at our desks in the CS dept at Hope.) My classwork suffered. On the upside, I became far more proficient at webwork, which really helped the part time job. I'd go home and code, post stories, reply to email until 2-3 a.m. and repeat it the next day. It was going to eventually be a full time job, requiring revenue and infrastructure that didn't exist back then. But I guess that's another story.
'Cause CnD was a top-hit on AltaVista for "WindowMaker" and "Enlightenment".
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Yes, Slashdot had some strange preoccupations in the early(*) days... every other story seemed to be about a new development release of Enlightenment (and a bit later some cheesy themes.org upload) or the 2.1 Linux kernel.
Wait a sec - I think I probably prefer that to the speculation and corporate soap opera / press releases that clog up the front page these days.
(*) Not that early. I started reading when Netscape announced their plans to free their web browser.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Low ID Roll call!!!
I figured this was necessary to get all the old chaps from the CnD days out.
Don't hold my high ID against me. I waited until the last minute to sign up for an account.
Before the signal-to-noise ratio was so low, before ads, before the need for accounts...
It was a simpler, friendlier time.
Sniff.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
As someone who only started reading Slashdot about 3 years ago, reading the history is extremely interesting. Thank you for posting this.
I'm looking forward to the future Slashdot stories later this week!
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
I will grant to you that my reminiscing was perhaps not the most informative comment, however as a comment to a reminiscent article I don't feel it is out-of-place.
If slashdot hid userids, I would not alter how I comment at all.
Do you think your profanity-laden post counts as a contribution? Your complaints that people who have been here longer are respected -- have you considered that perhaps the people who have been visiting technology forums for ten years are perhaps the best-informed and most interested in technology?
Maybe I'm not the stupid one. Certainly not stupid enough to get very upset about an Anonymous Coward. AC's have usually had little to contribute, even from the very beginning.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
I was actually hoping you'd start writing about /. especially since I wasn't around here back then at the beginning. Certainly do write more, either about the CnD transformation or just random stories that are somehow related to CnD or /.. It feels like there should be enough material for a small book, let alone a series of short articles.
And, since I missed the original anniversary story, congratulations!
Whoa, slow down there, George Jetson. When I first started reading Slashdot I had to send a telegraph to 'the server' to request a page. It would be sent by carrier pigeon. When it arrived I sent it to my crack team of designers who would 'interpret' the 'HTML codes' and then load the document into my printing press. If all went well and nobody was maimed, I'd have a fresh copy of Slashdot to read within a day of making my request.
And leaving comments? Don't get me started!
I remember stumbling on Chips and Dips when I was looking through the Hope pages wondering what the department was doing. Seemed like a pretty interesting little project, so I've continued lurking and contributing when I could. I've really enjoyed the site, and can't thank Rob enough for all of the years of reading. It's still the site I use for my tech news, despite the Diggs, Reddits, and what-nots.
Thanks again. Rob, for Slashdot back then, and may there be many many more years of Slashdot to come!
I'm glad you wrote this Cmdr. I have loved this site since '00. I don't give a damn what anyone says, Slashdot is still one of the best tech aggregation sites on the net.
Here's the Wayback archive of Rob Malda's page at Hope College.
From his About Me page: "In closing, I would just like to say that if you read this whole document, then you need more of a life than I need for typing it." Keep in mind that this is the same page that states he got into computers due to "A strong need to somehow construct a woman like those kids in Weird Science".
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
I think the discussion has been interesting. It's informative to see how the more important sites on the 'net were started. There's a common theme; geeks doing it for the love and fun of it.
Best regards.
I don't get it, so what if it is 2 years old?
Way back in the first few days, /. was quite wild and fun and about half the posts were trolls, flamebaits, races to see who could get the first post, with a whole lot of personality mixed in. If Jon Katz (To all former Katz haters, I still think we did the site an immense service, especially around the time of the Columbine shootings.) were still here, I think he'd have a lot of very interesting things to say about the good this site has done.
What was wilder still was that not too long after I first joined, the first attempts at moderation came into effect -- and for some reason they decided to let a sort of "down in the dumps at the time techie" who is a pretty good writer -- uh, that would be me -- be one of the few who started the moderation ball rolling. At the time if ya let someone know you were one of the moderators or abused the privilege --> poof no more moderation for you bucko!
Within weeks /. rose out of the dregs to become a site I still participate in from time to time, that I am proud to call part of my daily web experience, and that has shaped quite a few important debates, from the DCMA to SCO and a lot of ground in between. And I got to play in their sandbox and try to make a little difference in the world along the way. [They even tell me I have excellent Karma. :-) ]
I want to point at one more accomplishment over the last few yearsthat really deserves a standing ovation: on 9/11/2001, Slashdot was the only major news feed on the web that didn't crash due to overload, and this on technology and bandwidth that was way way WAY behind what we have now.
So, anonymously from a long time
When will http://slashdot.org/ come out of the dark ages and grow up to http://www.slashdot.org/ ? http://www.slashdot.org/ has been down for years. Could some of you early ones fill in on the story behind this strangeness?
I don't remember when (or how) I first came upon Slashdot, but it was in the early years. I used it for a long time before registering for an account, simply to rebel against what was then deemed to be an unacceptable invasion of privacy (I was quite paranoid back then). If I had known how horny the hot chicks got over low Slashdot IDs, I would have registered far earlier -sigh-.
Yeah me, too. That's why I made sure I was the original Anonymous Coward at
(In most other places, I'm the original Anonymous and IP Logged).
.. I yearn for the days when I would get a personal message from Cmrd. Taco and the gang, just for posting something smart to their new website.
..
Ah, those were the days. Before 'blogs' (what a horrid term), before 'wiki' (oh even worse...), before the push and the pull and the stagnation. Before hot grits. When you could check the site every *two days* or so, and not necessarily miss a story.
Oh, slashdot, you are a tempestuous mistress, but how we love you well
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
In the future, slashdot will have a flying car!
In the future, slashdot will achieve sentience! AI researches predict this is less than 5 years away!
In the future, androids will do all the work for the editors!
As miniaturization continues, in the future slashdot will move to 8 pt. type!
In a year and a half, slashdot will have twice as many transistors as it does now!
In the future, slashdot will be ready for the desktop!
etc... I'm sure you can come up with your own...
-- "Oh. This guy again."
Back when I first came here one could read every comment from every story posted and still have spare time.
When I first started checking /. out I felt a little out of place and it took a little time for me to register and post. But I'm glad I did. There's a ton of information floating around here and most of the members are helpful.
Congrats on 10 years of service.
...just hoping that someday 1166671 will be a low id.
Did you ever notice how you never see Wil Wheaton and CmdrTaco in the same photograph?
I can't be the only sub-5-digit Slashdotter who still works in the same building, same floor (different office number) that I was ten years ago when I registered.
I swear, I'll finish my thesis one of these days (grin)!
Don't let my "high" ID fool you, I was also one of those who lurked on slashdot since the early days. I remember when the user accounts were started. Earlier in this discussion someone asked to gauge how long it took to hit certain milestones in slashdot uid #'s. I would say it was between 2 and 3 years before we hit 200k, based on how long I seem to remember reading slashdot before thinking to myself, "well, dammit, I really ought to get to making a user id, before these numbers get too big". Yeah, it took me that long to decide to create an account. This is like my 3rd slashdot comment in 10 years. I am a lurker extra-ordinaire.
anyway, that's a side point to my main question:
who here remembers the little text box form Taco had on CnD, that let you send a message to his console?
Taco, I wrote you maybe a dozen times or so, usually like 4 or 5 messages all at once within about the same number of minutes... I can't remember a single thing that I wrote to you through that little one line form, but I hope you got a laugh out of it. oh, and Hamster Havoc still rocks.
--Josh
Is that really the way Anonymous Coward started? If so, my memory is failing.
I remember that there was a user that called himself Anonymous Coward in the days before user accounts. I thought that he wrote some pretty decent, though sometimes trollish, posts. Then there were all kinds of problems with people impersonating other users (especially Bruce Perens). So user accounts were created. When the accounts were created, the name "Anonymous Coward" was appropriated from people who weren't logged in. Some claimed that this ticked off the original AC, though no one could tell for sure.
Anyway, if anyone else remembers any of that, please back me up.
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
I want to see this guy modded troll for once :D
Why don't the user pages have join dates? After reading through a large portion of this thread (during class, my apologies to all, CmdrTaco gets it) I realized that most of us don't realize how long we've been reading this site, much less how long we've been _officially_ contributing.
Just thought I would tag your comment and hope for a reply shortly.
2^3 * 31 * 647
To be fair, people with low IDs seem to get some sort of automatic respect mods. Take the OP. Currently at +3 Interesting, for nothing more than stating he has a low ID. WTF, basically.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Ah yes, RFC1149. What a glorious upgrade from the rock network. Basically, in the old days, you would chisel your message onto a stone, preferably a small one, then lob it at your neighbor, and he would read the address, then throw it in the direction he thought it was supposed to go, and so on until it infrequently arrived at its intended destination. There's an ugly rumor that some 80% of the lost packets can be found at the bottom of Lake Wobegon as the result of a malicious MITM attack.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Chips and Dips from the wayback
machine.
Early slashdot pages.
You also never see Wil Wheaton and Batman in the same photograph, either.
Or Batman and Hitler, for that matter.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased