wow. i was just browsing the user list, and i'm amazed that i finally found someone that has a lower icq# than me. props goes to cushman. low icq#s have always been, in my circle of geek friends, a source of bragging rights. though i don't even use icq anymore, it still warms my heart when i get compliments.

so cheers to cushman, and whoever else that will probably reply saying that theirs is lower. =)

My bro has one that's in the 100k somewhere. He never uses it anymore, signed up like, right when it came out. I remember him showing it to me and me going, "That's the dumbest thing I ever seen." And now.. I use Trillian. Heh.

Me.

Bah, the mark of a true man isn't how low his ICQ number is, it's how low his "Register on" date for the empeg BBS is.

In reply to:

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Bah, the mark of a true man isn't how low his ICQ number is, it's how low his "Register on" date for the empeg BBS is.

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Hear hear! And moderator status to all registered before 2000 ;-)

it's how low his "Register on" date for the empeg BBS is

That'd be rob, then: apparently he registered on 31/12/69 11:00 PM

Way to go, Rob!

Yeah, pretty impressive to register 30 years or so before the BBS is created. Wonder if he had long hair back then? Perhaps a mop-top?

Wonder if he had long hair back then?

I dunno exactly how old Rob is, but you might just have to ask his mom that question...

The lowest I saw in the User List was Carl with 132880. I've never seen him post though.

EDIT: on a second look, I see his post count is 0. That would be why I've never seen him post.

A friend got me to sign up for the ICQ beta way back when and I just kept my old number forever. It was a totally new concept back then, and I think that I got on board within a month of the public beta or something.

There is one other member I recognize that has a lower ICQ number than me (that has more than 5 posts): CHiP.

My AIM userid has a space in it (which I think employees or ex-employees can still get). Same userid as my AOL account from back in 86/87 (akal, "AppleLink: Personal Edition" alpha test time period).

-brendan

Never used either AIM or ICQ, but was on IRC back when it was still an experimental service at University of Oulu (in Finland). I think IRC was the first real IM system, long before they came up with the silly "IM" name...

How about Zephyr from MIT?

The name of the tool escapes me at the moment, but there was an IRC-type tool running on the IBM mainframes I used at university in 1985. IRC dates to 1988, and Zephyr 1990, making them a bit late on the scene.

Ah, a bit of googling shows it was relay. Of course, for one-on-one instant messaging, Unix 'talk' goes back much farther than that (early 70's), along with similar tools on other OS environments.

--Dan.

Zephyr 1990

That seems wrong. I was using Zephyr in 1990 not at MIT.

My date appears to be wrong. I was going by this, but it looks like I was misinterpreting the meaning.

I can't find a more definitive history, but this guy's resume supports the idea that it dated back closer to the mid-80's.

Edit: Ah, here's a bit more of a timeline.

--Dan.

> That seems wrong. I was using Zephyr in 1990 not at MIT.

CMU? That's where I was using it then.

-brendan

NCSU.

Heh...I was also at CMU in 1990. Which program?

--Dan.

Well, technically, 1990 was my year off undergrad...
CS 1988-1989, Chemistry 1991...
then more time off...

-brendan