How a shell script became the world's first search engine

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The curious story of how a college student wrote a shell script and ended up changing the Internet. We take a look at the anonymous FTP search engine called Archie, and find out how it disappeared just as quickly as it arrived.
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00:00 - Intro
00:45 - Resource Discovery Problem
02:27 - Mike Schwartz
05:57 - The first search engine
06:28 - Alan Emtage
15:46 - The web emerges
17:57 - Mission impossible
18:37 - Outro
#internet #technology #90s
References and sources: docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTbjt6j2acrFtWZJmHqsujI2WLguOjW2rNh_mK6Rj2MEoNo_cjaY5_O5ReeqTYz-tWW9mqVzX6uCqvq/pub

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Опубликовано:

24 мар 2024

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Комментарии : 100

@MarkyShaw 6 месяцев назад

Anybody miss the explorative nature of the old net? Nowadays it seems like the paradigm has shifted to having too much information. Most of which is delivered to us whether we like it or not. At least the algorithm knows I love content like this. Thanks for helping us remember where we came from.

@tcscomment 6 месяцев назад

it has shifted from explorative to exploitative

@jamescollier3 6 месяцев назад

yeah, The Machine

@kazwat 6 месяцев назад

you should try using some distributed web tech! ipfs is a great protocol that needs applications and users

@jfbeam 6 месяцев назад

To me, the "information overload" is born out of spammers and the SEO industry. It's made it difficult to find the things you're actually looking for.

@ScottPlude 6 месяцев назад

The "old net" was truly great. The "new internet" is either rotten due to corporate control or fake due to certain influences and AI bots. Nothing can be trusted, not even audio and video now. So sad.

@Thiesi 6 месяцев назад

Wait - what?! After setting up your own dial-up ISP on period-correct hardware, you are now setting up an _Archie_ server?! Oh boy does this RU-vid channel not disappoint and tickle me in all the right places!

@hthring 6 месяцев назад

omg im pumped for this, i might even start my own anonymous ftp !

@Thiesi 6 месяцев назад

@@hthring Be careful with that though - mine got constantly abused for distributing stuff I probably wouldn't want to be associated with me until I disabled anonymous _downloads_ (not uploads though).

@hthring 6 месяцев назад

@@Thiesi wouldn't it make more sense to have anonymous downloads but not uploads?

@Thiesi 6 месяцев назад

@@hthring No, because I want those evil evilists to waste their time and bandwidth. Admittedly, that's not that big of an issue anymore nowadays, but I've been running my FTP server for literally decades now. Also, maybe someone does upload something useful at some point. (Not that that has ever happened though.)

@imadcom2010 6 месяцев назад

Great channel, I have been working in technology for over 2 decades and every time I watch this channel I learn something new.

@compu85 6 месяцев назад

The production quality of this presentation is fantastic! Looking forward to part two!

@jonathanplevine 6 месяцев назад

I used to work with Alan at Bunyip. Good times! At some point I was working on a prototype for a product that was basically the same idea as Amazon in its earliest form. Then some new VP came in and said: This is stupid, no one is ever going to _buy_ things on the internet. Shut it down.

@iGrave 6 месяцев назад

Ooh a cliffhanger! You tease :) Can't wait

@mx338 6 месяцев назад

Amazing little documentary, can't wait for the next part.

@DJSubAir 6 месяцев назад

Me too :)

@pjbeardsley 6 месяцев назад

I remember Archie!!! As a college student in the early 90s and was fortunate enough to experience this transformation. Thank you for capturing this history, love the channel.

@bitegoatie 6 месяцев назад

It's hard to believe no one kept up the technology for the extant FTP servers out there, just for the sake of doing it. People maintain all sorts of old tech as a hobby, as a curiosity. Given how important Archie was - and it was, as you say - that it has completely vanished is just atypical and, to overstate it just a bit, astounding.

@Invenciblemario 6 месяцев назад

Lots of maintenance work including responding to dmca takedowns. Same as a normal search engine.

@AWalYT 6 месяцев назад

I was super young (just barely in my teens) when I found out about Archie. Crazy to see it talked about here all these years later...It was definitely a tool of it's time...

@info-saturation 6 месяцев назад

This was utterly fascinating, thank you for making this

@greatquux 6 месяцев назад

Nice, great interviews with people who were there, and looking forward to the server being up. Gonna join a Patreon level just for this!

@kevinstatz 6 месяцев назад

These videos are so good. I always learn something new. The Serial Port crew has serious talent in presenting content like this. Taking the extra step and tying in a project or working demo makes it even more engaging. I'm only 31 so my earliest memories of the internet and search engines are rooted in the mid 90s. Part of the fun for me is learning about technologies from before i was even alive that make the Internet as we know it today possible.

@ImpiantoFacile 6 месяцев назад

Love all your videos. The production quality is amazing.

@sh0ckwaveVR6 6 месяцев назад

I'm from Quebec and I had no idea that the first Search engine was invented at McGill! Wow can't wait to see the next video! This is fascinating

@ScottPlude 6 месяцев назад

I really enjoyed this video. I just wish I had friends that also enjoyed content like this. I have family that lives with their faces glued to their iPhones and customers that pay me to know "nerd stuff" so they don't have to be bothered by anything technical. Thanks for making this video!

@boblister6174 6 месяцев назад

Sadly this video makes me realize how long I've been on the net I remember using this. Good information for people that never had access in the early 90's.(legitimate or not)

@ahbailglail 6 месяцев назад

Amazing video! Awesome you got to interview Alan

@KaldekBoch 6 месяцев назад

I used Archie from Australia using a 1200 baud modem in the very early 1990s, but I was very young and had no idea what was really going on! I recall we dialled into Monash University, or perhaps Latrobe. Of course, we downloaded ASCII porn. 12 year olds gonna 12 year old I guess.

@danyay 6 месяцев назад

Face reveal video! Love this channel, great video. Keep it up!!

@binarybear9711 6 месяцев назад

Oh boi, this technology journey is stunning for a young person like me (24yo). For me the Internet started to take place in my Life with Windows XP and 1k dialup...😅 Todays I even feel "Special" when I can Talk about IDE, floppy disks and the time when you got to disconnect from the internet, because of mom wants to call somebody 😂

@LB4FH 6 месяцев назад

Nice to see and hear this part of the internet history 👍🏻 Also, I love seeing the old internet map with the only non-US nodes being Norway and London

@jj74qformerlyjailbreak3 6 месяцев назад

The Name of this Channel alone deserves a Subscription

@astacc 6 месяцев назад

Thanks for making all these great videos. Without this, I don't think I would ever even think of researching this much about early internet

@Seanbyford 6 месяцев назад

Randomly recommended this by RU-vid…and I’m glad it was! Great content - having lived through the era or nothing to now - and also being a massive nerd; this is wonderful to watch

@easteregg8699 5 месяцев назад

is just want to put out here, how much i love your content. all of this is just amazing !

@bigMax1337 6 месяцев назад

I love how this basically becomes a how to on how to build up a parallel internet. I think there is something amazing about having your own infrastructure and independence for large companies.

@Myfatheredward 6 месяцев назад

Absolutely great video! I love this channel.

@patteahan8704 6 месяцев назад

Super cool. Can't wait for the follow up

@Phillip3223 6 месяцев назад

The field of search engines is so much undervalued I feel. Thanks for creating this video, sharing some insights of the very start. As a fun note from my own experience: Hyperlinks are a double edged sword. They are the very building block a search engine may follow along, but there is so much noise. Or rather "DUST" (duplicate url same text)

@TheBardicDruid 6 месяцев назад

"The field of search engines is so much undervalued" If you think that, just try using your own search engine and watch how quickly and viciously Google comes after you, after all, they own every search engine on the internet.

@BigMacIIx 5 месяцев назад

I''m feeling so old now remembering connecting on the RISQ network with a 1200baud modem for searching warez with Archie.

@jfbeam 6 месяцев назад

This was true before the explosive growth of the internet as well. BBS's weren't advertised on interstate billboards. It was very much a matter of who you knew. (and what they're willing to share.) To a much lesser degree, that sort of thing still exists. (The media likes to call it "The Dark Web".)

@JamesBos 6 месяцев назад

This was wonderful. Thank you! 😊

@capybara5494 6 месяцев назад

Holy shit that was awesome i’m so pumped

@JUSTforwhitlisting 6 месяцев назад

As a Concordia graduate, interesting to see that search began at McGill

@edwardbyard6540 6 месяцев назад

I miss the BBS and 90s internet days. I'm talking Usenet, CompuServe and maybe even Geocities era. No social media, no scams (well, maybe a bit of pump and dump stock fraud) but the internet today is a cess pit. It needs fixing, but how I do not know.

@NotStoopid0228 6 месяцев назад

Keep up the great work

@NicholasAndre1 6 месяцев назад

Ok I’m gonna call this out: your film frame border you used is tmax 3200 which is a high speed black and white film, not a color one 😂 Alright I’ve concluded my pedantry. Amazing video btw.

@josephk6373 6 месяцев назад

wow, so cool excellent content every time!

@audiocrush 6 месяцев назад

What a cliffhanger! :D

@mikemaldanado6015 6 месяцев назад

I used to use archie all the time but did not know the backstory, this was interesting. Thanks. btw my friends and i used to discover computers by each war dialing a subset of phone numbers every night. Surprisingly we discovered some interesting computers, some of them run by the govt. Most allowed anonymous ftp access back then....

@bluesquare23 6 месяцев назад

ZnRwLmJsdWVzcXVhcmUyMy5zaA==

@TeslaTales59 6 месяцев назад

How I remember those ftp searching days! One of the first GUIs was made by WRQ- Made it much easier? Does anyone remember that?

@iOMNetwork 6 месяцев назад

Hey, I have an index of all files from all anonymous FTP server. its a 21 GB large file. Let me know if you need it. Imo its not really worth the effort of running a service like archie. There is no benefit in it since you cant ensure availability. It would be easier to load all the files and provide them in a google drive with unlimited space. As far as I can see there is no interesting stuff anymore besides backup files, huge map archives. And then there are files that can put u in troubles due to copyright stuff like movies.

@ChrisKewl Месяц назад

You should do a story on the FreeNet!

@Sauceyjames 6 месяцев назад

FTP is treated as a command prompt?? I was wondering why it was Impossible for me to download files 1995 and older on ftp websites.

@nickwallette6201 6 месяцев назад

Not exactly. It's a command-based protocol, but the FTP client is responsible for translating user input to server commands. So, it CAN be CLI... but it doesn't have to be. It just depends on the client software you use. Obviously, in the days of text-mode interfaces, it was used primarily through a command-line client. FTP and SMTP (email) are very similar in this way. The commands and responses are designed to be parsable by both humans and computers, and both present a session that you use commands to interact with. However, pretty much nobody interacts directly with an email server, while it's (relatively) common to use FTP interactively. There's nothing preventing you from using a terminal app to connect to an email server and read your email interactively. Likewise, browsers and other software can navigate an FTP session and grab a file without any further input.

@sophya5796 6 месяцев назад

Been ill since October and most days it just seems there's nothing to look forward to anymore. So grateful for this channel for trying to challenge that feeling 💔

@Memerino-ly7yr 6 месяцев назад

Positively awesome

@ScottPlude 6 месяцев назад

Thanks!

@Jerrec 6 месяцев назад

I still love FTP Servers. They are beautiful simple. I hate complex HTTP Portals they use nowadays. Happy at least in the bubble I am, more and more FTP's (secure) reappear.

@lesfreresdelaquote1176 5 месяцев назад

Tant de souvenirs. So many memories

@protox07 6 месяцев назад

I like your videos

@evilborg 6 месяцев назад

I remember archie.....

@dcchillin4687 6 месяцев назад

Where would the world be without Altavista?

@virt1one 5 месяцев назад

haha... @5:37 "you had thousands of hosts, hosting hundreds of GIGABYTES of data." no. Hundreds of MEGAbytes of data. Cool your jets, we're still saving files on 140kb 5.25" floppies about this time.