Oldest Search
Productivity
search tool
SHOW HN2022
295points
87comments
#144of 2,570 in 2022
Top 6%of 2022 by points
How HN took it
RoastedHalf or more of the comments are critical
12 positive, 14 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 32 critical, out of 60 comments about the project. Thread score -0.34.
Execution: 1 for, 29 againstPerformance: 6 for, 0 againstIdea: 5 for, 0 againstDesign: 0 for, 2 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Surfaces old news articles and personal history that ordinary search misses.
From 2 comments
I learned something new about my father through an old news article that came up when searching his name. I won’t say what it was, but it is something personally meaningful to me…
onionisafruit on HNThis turned up the old school year books for my dad, including some photos I would probably not have seen otherwise. Saved into my family archives now as something for my son to…
XorNot on HN
Nostalgic and fun to explore.
From 2 comments
Very well done, this brings back a lot of memories and nostalgia. For example, searching for: jeff bezos returns the 1997 shareholder letter.…
thestepafter on HNVery fun to see how trends got started! Searched quantum computing and the oldest result was Peter Schor's paper on what would become Schors algorithm
samaman on HN
Objections
Dates are often wrong, since it relies on Google results with inaccurate publish dates.
From 4 comments
The results aren't very meaningful. Seems like it is relying on self reported fields from sites, which don't make much sense in this context. So far I have found: - LinkedIn…
paxys on HNI also searched Tiktok and my first result was a BBC News story called 'What is Tiktok' from 1991! I suspect it's a typo in the publish date field.
petepete on HN> "Covid" shows recent results. Covid wasn't around until 2019, so I don't imagine what you'd expect to find earlier than that? It's funny how it mis-dates a lot of the entires…
marginalia_nu on HNFor my search: Several results from 2001, when the oldest result should be circa 2012. One result was an indexed tweet, correct date is May 4 this year, but it was incorrectly…
EB-Barrington on HN
Results are not truly the oldest internet content; many are old print articles or database records.
From 3 comments
Top result for "IBM" is dated March 31, 1983. But it's cheating, see for yourself https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.220.4592.43
Maursault on HNI don't get it. It pulls up journal entries from the 1970's on PubMed. Are those "on the internet"? What about Google Books results?
jacobsievers on HNFor some things, like "lisp", it goes back to the 70s. That seems correct. For others, like "slashdot.org", it only goes back to the turn of the millenium. It can't really be…
dleslie on HN
Requires JavaScript, which is unappealing for old-web fans.
From 1 comment
"You need to enable JavaScript to run this app." This seems especially unappealing for people who like the old web.
macleodan on HN
Requests
Add Usenet archive results.
From 2 comments
In another one of my same day projects I'd like to add usenet results as well.
jarrenae on HNhttps://www.usenetarchives.com/ is a good resource for that! EDIT: seems like search there is broken.
jarrenae on HN
Better filtering of inaccurately dated pages.
From 2 comments
Agreed, this is a sort of proof of concept version, and ideally we could more effectively filter out inaccurately dated pages. Like I mentioned in my original comment, we're…
jarrenae on HNAgreed. Better filtering would be helpful. I'd also like to add Usenet and book searches eventually as well.
jarrenae on HN
Add book and historical document sources.
From 1 comment
Agreed, this is a sort of proof of concept version, and ideally we could more effectively filter out inaccurately dated pages. Like I mentioned in my original comment, we're…
jarrenae on HN
Questions
How is the earliest date determined for a result?
From 2 comments
I wonder what they mean by "oldest entries" after doing a query for "Apple II". The first two results were this day in history style pages, with the first page having a…
II2II on HNThe date is when the url was first crawled, not the date of the current content.
estebarb on HN
Why does the page flash a blue screen?
From 1 comment
Why is it flashing a bluescreen at me every 25 seconds? https://oldestsearch.com/blue.png Code from their site: ``` setInterval(() => { app.style.backgroundImage =…
Meai on HN
Alternatives named
Google date-filtered search and custom ranges.
From 2 comments
Something is wrong. Obviously I put in my own family name because I know both my brother and I have been active very, very early. Here's Google on the name 1993-1997:…
chx on HNI honestly need the opposite of this most the time. It's almost muscle memory for me to do `Tools -> Any Time -> Past Year` on any search for technical information. A lot of…
w-ll on HN
Usenet archives and search engines.
From 2 comments
The key to this is just searching the archives of Usenet. That will almost guarantee you the "oldest" result since you're seeing essentially 20th century…
mark242 on HNhttps://www.usenetarchives.com/ is a good resource for that! EDIT: seems like search there is broken.
jarrenae on HN
Google's old 2001 index search and Wayback Machine.
From 2 comments
Years ago, Google released site where you could search one of their very early indexes of the web. I think it might have been around 2010 when they released it? I haven't been…
runlevel1 on HNgoogle should productise this... for every decade if it's easier on infrastructure, snapshot it and preserve, hell work with waybackmachine.. I know it won't bring back geocities…
alliao on HN