Archie, the Internet’s first search engine, is rescued and running
It's amazing, and a little sad, to think that something created in 1989 that changed how people used and viewed the then-nascent Internet had nearly vanished by 2024.
Nearly, that is, because the dogged researchers and enthusiasts at
The Serial Port channel on YouTube
have found what is likely the last existing copy of Archie.
Archie, first crafted by Alan Emtage while a student at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, allowed for the searching of various "anonymous" FTP servers around what was then a very small web of universities, researchers, and government and military nodes.
It was groundbreaking; it was the first echo of the "anything, anywhere" Internet to come.
And when The Serial Port went looking, Archie did not exist
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