What was SL like on day 1?

[JetReigns]

Was the world completely empty, or were there buildings and a tutorial and such?

Just curious if anyone knows, I guess lol

[Tary Allen]

Still in Beta, 2001 (Linden World)

 

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

Hmm. "What was SL like on Day 1?" is not as clear as one would imagine. It also depends on what version of SL you actually mean. 

Second Life was originally called Linden World during it's initial creation in 2001 and Alpha Testing period in early 2002. Linden World  - as it was - had between 6 and 9 regions that did not have actual region names. There are no known maps illustrating how these earliest unnamed regions were arranged. And Linden World was on a different grid to the one that Second Life currently lives on.

These earliest Linden World regions and grid were populated by just 25 invited Alpha Testers (plus the Lindens) in a closed access Alpha Test grid. Linden Labs had invited 25 people to be involved in their closed access "Early Creator" Alpha Test program in early 2002. One of the 25 testers was Steller Sunshine, who was the first ever public person to register for an account - even before Philip Linden did!

Steller Sunshine built herself a small tree house, a cottage and a huge Giant Beanstalk game which involved avatars getting from the ground to the top without flying, requiring the avatar to hop from branch leaf to branch leaf. At the Beanstalk's top was the objective of "Cloud Nine", surrounded by actual inworld particle clouds. Steller also built herself a large mansion house - which the first Lindens also used for their inworld meetings!

By the middle of 2002, one of the unnamed Linden World Alpha Test regions was being used as "Linden City", a prototype test town full of test buildings and structures. In this test town, behind a large civic building was a tall statue, simply titled as "The Man", built by a freelance Linden employee known as OldJohn Linden.  Old John's "The Man" statue has since become well known to SL residents and historians.

 A second closed access testing period began on 1st November 2002. This Beta testing period had a newer larger grid of sixteen regions, all with names borrowed from streets and alleyways found around Linden Lab's San Francisco-based HQ. The Alpha Test grid was then closed and deleted. Some objects from the Alpha Test grid were saved to the Linden's servers, including Steller Sunshine's mansion house, which she gifted to the Lindens.

The statue from the Alpha Test grid test town of "Linden City" was also saved as a keepsake and was relocated into the new Beta Test grid, at the region called Natoma,  the eighth region of the "San Francisco Sixteen".  The statue, simply titled as "The Man",  was placed into Natoma region on top of a small hill which Philip Linden personally terraformed himself and where the statue of "The Man" still sits today.

At the same time Beta testing began, the name "Linden World" was changed to "Second Life" for the first time in November 2002.

Original Alpha Tester Steller Sunshine continued her testing in the new "Second Life" Beta Test grid, famously rebuilding a giant beanstalk game in the Welsh region. The Lindens also created a new region called Clementina, which they used for "Governor Linden's Mansion", the same mansion that Steller Sunshine had gifted to them .

In early 2003, the public were allowed preview access to the Beta version of "Second Life" to try it out.  At the same time, the Beta Test world was enlarged with the addition of the "Colour Regions" expansion to the north of the orignal "San Francisco Sixteen".

A special "Beta Testers" memorial wall, including all the names of the Beta Testers (including Steller Sunshine) was opened in Plum, one of the Colour regions. 

The full public release and opening of the completed Second Life grid happened on 23rd June 2003. This date is the "official birthday" of Second Life, although the Second Life grid and "Second Life" name originates from the earlier date of 1st November 2002.

Today, "The Man" statue still sits on top of Philip's Hill in Natoma and has become the longest continually rezzed object in SL history. In 2022, the statue even had it's own 20th Birthday party!

However,  "The Man" statue was not the first or the oldest object of SL, it's "only" the longest continually rezzed. That first and oldest object honour goes to the humble prim cube itself, which was first rezzed in the Alpha Test grid on 25th January 2002 by it's inventor and creator, Avi Bar Zeev, who was a colleague of Philip Rosedale (aka Philip Linden).

Since their 1st November 2002 creation, the San Francisco Sixteen regions have all become surrounded by other groups of regions, merging into a large continent-sized landmass now known as Sansara; SL's first and oldest mainland continent.  Those original San Francisco Sixteen regions all still exist and can be visited today. Due to the way that regions appear when activated or restarted (from south-west to north-east), Da Boom region was the first Second Life region to be created on the Beta Test grid - beating it's eastern neighbour Ritch by mere milliseconds.

The San Francisco Sixteen sims are (in order of age or first appearance) are: (1) Da Boom, (2) Ritch, (3) Zoe, (4) Stanford, (5) Federal, (6) Freelon, (7) Minna, (8) Natoma, (9) Taber, (10) Welsh, (11) Clyde, (12) Hawthorne, (13) Shipley, (14) Clara, (15) Varney and (16) Stillman.

As well as being known as Second Life's first and oldest sim region, Da Boom is also considered the exact centre of SL, as it's grid longitude and latitude position has the unique co-ordinates of 1000,1000.

If you visit Da Boom's south-west corner at co-ordinates 0,0, you'll find a tall rock formation with a flame at it's top. This location is considered the exact centre spot and oldest part of SL. Surrounding this rock formation and flame are the "blast crater" in surrounding sim region walls where Da Boom's "Big Bang" (or Big Da Boom?!) moment of creation is retro-actively imagined to have taken place on 1st November 2002.

Edited January 2, 2023 by Dyna Mole
typo by the OP

[Freckles Fairelander]

I've heard of Steller's beanstalk. Does it still exist?

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

2 hours ago, Aime Ravenhurst said:

I've heard of Steller's beanstalk. Does it still exist?

Yes, Steller Sunshine's Beanstalk still exists in the region named Welsh, you can't miss it!

Edited December 29, 2022 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

Cool history lesson! I remember the Linden dude that told me about SL way back when talking about prim-a-tars.