I don't get the "audio" connection. The only thing I can think of is that hydrogen is #1 on the periodic table. Ergo, hydrogenAudio is the #1 audio forum? Maybe? 8)
I found a very old post by the mighty JohnV at the Winamp forum: http://forums.winamp.com/showpost.php?s=af9ebb97c08c7561e3861306c2bf34f1&p=359342&postcount=1
It must be this page was meant to host "Hydrogen audio Tools"
Why the developers of that Software choosed Hydrogen for their tools is another story.
Nice find. I haven't been here from the beginning, but i do remember when it it had the dot-org extension.
Here is the earliest page that web.archiver.org captured: https://web.archive.org/web/20011030133642/http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/
The part of the FAQ about the Hydrogen audio tools was captured once, and ... not much there ;)
https://web.archive.org/web/20020709034508/http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Project_Mayhem_FAQ&file=index&myfaq=yes&id_cat=2&categories=Hydrogen+Audio+Tools
In my mind, and I never assumed this was the reason they chose but in my mind, this is a community about the science of digital audio and just like a bit is the smallest unit of digital data, hydrogen is basically just a proton (usually with an electron but not as an ion) which is the smallest element on the periodic table.
So I always thought of the Hydrogen as referencing the science of digital.
But I doubt that's why they chose it, it's just the association my brain made.
That's a pretty good association. I can go with that. 8)
Actually, my association was as follows:
Take a certain substance necessary for life: H2O.
Which has hydrogen, and then something which also is also absolutely for us to have in the air around us (... audio).
Now playing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Is_Like_Oxygen
ok now I feel super weird. I always assumed that hydrogen audio was a clever play about H0 for null hypothesis...