Early development of Instant Messaging

Hello, I am Jessica , a graduate student from China. I am preparing for a paper on the early development of Instant Messaging Service.

Obviously, the paper’s major concerns fall into two categories: ICQ and AIM. It is reported that the initial edition of AIM was released in the early 1996. However, as a green hand in IM field, The earliest edition of AIM that I could find seems to be Edition 2.01(possibly released on Apr. 1999). Is any information relating to the initial version AIM available?

Thanks for your information and opinons in advance!