Finding/Accessing a Thread's 'first post'

[kindred]

Is there a way, armed with just the thread ID, to display the first post? I'm trying to write a quick tool to link back to the very first post, but I don't want to make it too complex or involve any server side work.

My only luck so far is to use showthread.php?t=XXXXX&pp=1 (1 post per page), but its not very 'elegant', at least not in the sense that what I really want is output like showpost.php (i.e. View Single Post).

Thanks in advance!

[Marco van Herwaarden]

The postid of the first post in the thread is available in the thread table (and the $threadinfo cache).