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EarlyFolditWaybackMachine

Early versions of fold.it featured an aqueous medium, but the proteins tended to be filtered out.

The early history of Foldit is a bit murky, but the Foldit news and other sources, such as the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, show the game had an "alpha" phase in 2007, with the "beta" phase starting 8 May 2008. (Yes, the game is still in "beta".)

Early new items refer to "game.bakerlab.org/portal" as the home of Foldit. Even earlier, the fold.it site seems to have been occupied by a British design firm, and then a blogger.

The annals are mixture of serious science and silly stuff. (And a few server siestas.)

There's also a moment of true sadness, the loss of someone who was probably everyone's favorite folder.

Early on[]

Here's a sampling of the players and groups from the earliest days of Foldit who are still active as the 10th anniversary approaches:

Let the games begin[]

Foldit 5thanniversary

Foldit timeline through its fifth anniversary.

Here are some highlights of Foldit through the years:

2007[]

  • Puzzle 1 opens 15 November 2007, closes 21 November 2007. No results reported on the puzzle page. Chris Carrico from the UW Biochemistry Department is reported as the winner. Chris goes on to win puzzle 2 as well.

2008[]

  • Puzzle 42 "Alpha Rabbit" opens 16 April 2008, closes 23 April 2008. Still no results on the puzzle page, but hey, rabbits. Adorable! LFB
  • Welcome to Foldit! video posted 8 May 2008.
  • Puzzle 50 opens 10 January 2009, closes 12 May 2008. Something is wrong with the start date, but this appears to be the first puzzle with results. Also group play is reported, with Void Crushers the one and only team. Soloist p66 takes the win, followed by mummiebrain and dissipate. TheGummer, playing for Void Crushers, is the only team player, finishing 7th.
  • Group sharing is announced as a new feature, 29 May 2008.
  • CASP 8 competition starts 10 June 2008.
  • The Foldit wiki is created in July 2008 by Diderot (aptly enough).
  • Soloists and evolvers annouced 26 July 2008.
  • Duels are announced 22 September 2008. Duels are outlawed after the death of Alexander Hamilton.

2009[]

  • "All hands" puzzles announced 13 February 2009. These puzzles share the top five solutions every two hours for players to refine.
  • Foldit t-shirt competition announced 8 April 2009.

2010[]

2011[]

2012[]

2013[]

  • Foldy 9000, an intelligent in-game assistant, renders human players obsolete 1 April 2013.
  • Bletchley Park renders human players obsolete, 19 April 2013.
  • Galaxie reaches #1 on both the soloist and evolver boards, 12 August 2013.

2014[]

2015[]

  • Puzzle 1000 results are discussed in blog post 15 January 2015.
  • CASP 11 results for Foldit are announced 28 January 2015.
  • Tony Origami becomes the first "Thermodynamic Lawbreaker", completing one hundred million moves, 4 June 2015.

2016[]

2017[]

The future is in your hands!

EarlyFolditWaybackMachine

Foldit has been compared to the game Go.

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