Historical Movie - LindenWorld August 2001
Friday, August 18th, 2006 at 12:35 PM by: James LindenOn the eve of the Second Life Community Convention, here’s a present for the community.
While trying to generate some archival screen shots, Andrew and I managed to get a build running of Second Life circa August 2001. We called it “LindenWorld” back in those days. Here’s a video showing what we looked like back then. I apologize in advance for the movie quality - I’m an engineer, not an artist, and I shot and narrated this in one take.
Video: LindenWorld August 2001.mov (6 min, 160 MB, QuickTime 7 required)
Streaming version on YouTube
You’ll see our first human-like avatar (we called him “primitar”). Previous versions had used spaceships and flaming eyeballs as avatars. This was one of the first builds that allowed user-created objects. Of course, there was no inventory to put them in, and any other user could modify them. Remnants of our previous ecosystem are here, including rocks, birds, “ators” (snake-like creatures), rain and deformable water.
I think it’s nice to see the rudimentary pieces of Second Life coming together. We’ve come a long way since then: better chat, customizable avatars, gestures, better object editing, permissions, inventory, land parcels, terraforming, groups, etc. But the basic land and sky and boxes are much the same.
August 18th, 2006 at 12:46 PM
OMG!!! HISTORGASM!!!
August 18th, 2006 at 1:08 PM
“I’m an engineer, not an artist”
Dammit, Jim!
Sorry, couldn’t resist that one.
Anyway, the video’s very slow to load, but it’s really interesting to see. Thanks for sharing it.
August 18th, 2006 at 1:26 PM
Wow thats really awesome to see. Thanks for sharing!
It’s interesting to see what has changed and what hasn’t. It gives a nice idea of what needs more attention.
Would there be any way to allow people to run this themselves? I’d love to just play around in it, even if its a solo experience. I have an old client from around 1.0 or so, but you can’t of course actualy log in with it or really do anything with it but look at the login screen (I miss the old login image!).
Anyway, the video was nicely done
August 18th, 2006 at 1:43 PM
Thanks to Cornelius Linden, the mp4 version is now also available.
August 18th, 2006 at 1:46 PM
Awesome! It’s going to take a *while* to download on my lowly 512 kbit ADSL, but I’m sure I will love it
Thank you so much for sharing this! One day beta will rise again. And I will be there to see it
August 18th, 2006 at 1:48 PM
I think its so amazing to see .. the first baby steps of the game we play now. Wonderful. I really love my secondlife.
Thank you
August 18th, 2006 at 2:24 PM
thanks for this..good to see old time movies..:=)
August 18th, 2006 at 2:28 PM
Really enjoyed watching this..
Favorite part : using granades to terraform lol
August 18th, 2006 at 3:00 PM
woo - That’s amazingly cool
August 18th, 2006 at 3:23 PM
now that brings back some memories
btw, the spaceships shot spheres which we gleefully used to make big waves, knock down trees and deform the land.
August 18th, 2006 at 3:43 PM
^ Nice to meet you Hunter!
I’ve also added a YouTube version for those of you who can’t wait to see the movie.
August 18th, 2006 at 3:51 PM
This is great because, you know, any update now makes everything 1000x worse. Therefore, LindenWorld is perfect and bug free. It is really cool to see SL v0.0.0.0.1
August 18th, 2006 at 4:01 PM
“Andrew is still working on Havoc 2″
Who will join me in a toast to the ators ?
August 18th, 2006 at 4:19 PM
So as there is a preview grid, there is to be a post-view grid, containing this version I hope?
August 18th, 2006 at 4:31 PM
Was Lindenworld a separate place from DaBoom? Or did Lindenworld turn into DaBoom?
August 18th, 2006 at 6:48 PM
[...] Official Linden Blog Link: http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/08/18/historical-movie-lindenworld-august-2001/ YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK3×3FNlleU [...]
August 18th, 2006 at 7:08 PM
Hehehe, that was awesome, thanks for sharing.
August 18th, 2006 at 7:51 PM
You guys totally need to bring back that water… and maybe the object fracturing
August 18th, 2006 at 7:53 PM
Salazar, this movie is from a development version of SL 9 months older than alpha. In the transition from alpha to beta everything was wiped. I don’t even think sims had names in alpha…?
August 19th, 2006 at 5:47 AM
Wow! So cool to see the evolution from then to now!
Speaking of evolution, the ators and birds segment reminded me of a National Geographic special…hehe
Thanks for sharing!
August 19th, 2006 at 4:58 PM
[...] Philip was mainly talking about his biography and how SL came into life Cory Linden was then showing Linden World a bit (videos are up here). [...]
August 19th, 2006 at 6:35 PM
Archive.org has a number of the old client installers (and i have most installers in my private archive, which i have presently misplaced).
August 20th, 2006 at 6:45 PM
Written about on CNET!
‘Second Life’ brass show off ancient versions
http://news.com.com/2061-10797_3-6107517.html
August 20th, 2006 at 8:41 PM
I demand we roll back SL to Linden WOrld Terraforming. Now.
August 22nd, 2006 at 7:08 AM
That primitar was pretty fun with his grenade launchers. He would be banned from most sims today. But boy oh boy i bet he sure could create some havoc before he got bounced.
I am wondering if the primitar, the rock-eating Linden Birds, and the ators (snake-like creatures with big jaws who eat the birds, for those who haven’t seen the video) are still hidden in the software somewhere, ready to reappear if the right bug gets triggered!
August 22nd, 2006 at 10:00 PM
I have found an befriended a huge Ator at:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Whitlock/181/162/105/?title=Felix%27s%20Ator
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:20 AM
Awesome video! Too cool to describe it.