March 15, 1985 was forty years ago and it’s the birthday of Symbolics.com — the first .com domain ever registered.
On that Friday, someone took the task to record the creation of a domain name; at the time, domain registrations were handled by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) so whoever did that was a federal employee. Domain registrations were free.
For the record, DARPA was established in 1958 in response to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik 1, with the goal of advancing military technology and ensuring US technological superiority. DARPA played a key role in the early development of the internet, including funding the creation of ARPANET, the precursor to the modern internet.
Symbolics, Inc. was founded on April 9, 1980.
It was a computer manufacturer known for developing Lisp machines. The Lisp Machine was the first commercially available workstation, although that word had not yet been created. The company’s registration of the first .com domain is part of internet history.
Hundreds of millions of registered domains and 40 years later, Symbolics.com continues to exist, retaining its original registration date. Aron Meystedt, registrant of Symbolics.com, acquired the domain in 2009 after a “lucky strike” that allowed his offer to be accepted by the company that owned it.
We can’t reveal nor hint about the amount that Aron paid to acquire Symbolics.com. Upon selling the domain, the company moved to the less inspiring domain Symbolics-DKS.com.
An existing listing of Symbolics.com at Afternic seeks a minimum $500,000 dollars for the domain, although it’s not confirmed whether this is a valid listing. Aron himself says that some domain investors are aware of his current “unreachable and unrealistic” asking price, in a video interview to NamesCon:
Copyright © 2025 DomainGang.com · All Rights Reserved.
Love seeing a good writeup about Symbolics Inc. DARPA etc.
Well done.
PS: Let me adjust that min offer price real quick 😉