The explainxkcd wiki says that cats were added later, and that permalinks go to ...

drewtato 9 months ago | parent | context | favorite | on: Development Notes from xkcd's "Machine"

The explainxkcd wiki says that cats were added later, and that permalinks go to a snapshot of the machine. So it's possible all the cats are lower in the machine, or the permalink is from before cats were added. There's some cats at the bottom of the machine right now. https://xkcd.com/2916/#xt=2&yt=105&v=1402