sites:termiwiki:the_abridged_history

The Abridged History

Detailed below you will find the story of the University Of Plymouth Terminal Society AKA TermiSoc, this is a compilation of the stories of three previous members of the society.

To the men and women who have made society what it is today:

We salute you.

Case's Early History of TermiSoc

In the beginning, there was darkness.

Then, sometime in 1991…

…the original Group Of Three formed the Terminal Society. Who were these people?

Details of this time are vague and have taken on almost mystical significance. Tales abound of a great processing engine, known only as The Cadmus which had been acquired by the Society. Rumoured to sound 'similar to Concorde taking off' due to its German engineering background, it was never successfully repaired (see - the Radio Shack, The Cadmus, Andy Simpkins).

The Society's activities at this time are shrouded in mystery, though there are reports of a great Mud Meet that took place, involving the users of a (now defunct) chat system called Cheeseplants House. People from all over the land congregated in Plymouth. Great flagons of ale were drunk and the partying continued until at least 3, even 4 minutes past eleven.

Around this time, the first Termisoc Bulletin Board System was created. Known as Hades, it attracted a moderate clientele, with users from universities across the land. This system was used as a major selling point to new members at the next Freshers Faire (see - Freshers Faire, Fresher, Heat Exhaustion) and a prototype T-Shirt design was produced ('Tell us to go to hell and we'll see you in Hades').

Sadly, this never went into full-scale production.

1992

From Freshers Faire 1992, there were a grand total of 12 members, many of whom were never to be seen again. It was at this time that the most momentous occurrence took place: I, your humble scribe, joined the society. Recognising greatness, I was instantly promoted to the massive responsibilities of Social Secretary (see Social Secretary, Waste Of Time).

The Exec. now stood as follows:

Through various promotions, the society was able to push its membership into the low twenties, and thus survive being expunged from existence under Union rules.

1993

Freshers Faire 1993 was an abject failure. Nothing happened - no one actually went to the Fair representing Society. Strangely, word got around that a BBS existed here in Plymouth and a small group of users formed.

Through a little coercion, some of the Hades users were convinced to join TermiSoc. Amongst those who joined, the most notable include Paul "Nemo" Bland and Alex "whoosh/veeg/yaxu" McLean.

1993 Exec. (revised)

However, all was not well within the new exec. and factions were formed. Things came to a head and, unfortunately, there were changes.

1993 Exec. (revised revision)

For the first time in recorded history, TermiSoc entered a budget request form, with which to buy its own machine. Plans were made for Freshers Faire 1994, and membership again exceeded 20 people.

1994

Freshers Faire 1994 was the first big Termisoc push to get members. There were slogans ('Termisoc - Think Carrot'), there were posters and even a gimmick for joining (a free carrot!).

On the back of this mammoth success (over 30 members by the end of the evening) the Society was set for the year. Notable joiners included Alex "btf" Allmont, Ashley "Arp" Pomeroy and some other people.

The Exec. attended its first Budget Review and convinced the Union to part with sufficient cash to buy a machine of its own. Within months, Termisoc's first machine, Area51 was born. a massive 486 DX50 with 8MB of memory, it was a powerful machine (see Falling RAM Prices, Hardware Costs in 1994). Through a strange quirk of fate, the society was never billed for the components, a fact that to this day has never been explained.

The BBS software was changed as was the name: Flux BBS was born!

Chas' More Recent History Of TermiSoc

1995

We don't talk about 1995… I don't know why

1996

1996 Exec.

The above were the stable elements of the 1996 exec, however, the other positions did see a time of change.

Treasurer - The year starts with Steve Sloggett as treasurer, however, this nobleman was never to be seen again in this role, despite holding the position officially for most of the academic year. Towards the end of the year, Matt "Melf" Davidson was to take on the role. However, this only lasted for about a month before he disappeared into the world of work at ACI in Watford. The last period saw Aaron "Betty" Trevena elected as Treasurer.

Another position that was the subject of interesting times was that of the 1st PR Officer - Louise Kidney filled this role for a period of this year, before resigning, leaving the post empty until the AGM.

This exec did get its hands on another server and hence Flux BBS got its own machine - Prot as it was known.

However, it did come to pass that in September of 1996, three first years did wander in from the wilderness and make a pain in the arse of themselves.

Little did the exec know what these three and others they would pick up on the way do to this small body of computing experts.

This small group of miscreant freshers became known as:

Without wasting any time at all they did step forth and joined forces with some of the other members and did get stuck in.

1997

The 1997 AGM yielded a new exec:

And later another role was created:

This new exec put in a budget again and got the money together for a third machine - Esra. Area51 was swapped to a new, more powerful machine, Prot became what was Area51 and Esra was to become the newly upgraded Prot.

The 1997 Freshers Fayre was a storming success and 60ish members joined up on that evening alone. The following week a meeting was held in one of the Babbage lecture theatres where members were given booklets on how to use TermiSoc's services and disks containing shareware internet utilities.

After a scare where the connection was in doubt, relations with CS became better than ever and CS started using Flux as a method of communication and feedback with the students (TermiSoc and otherwise)

1998

The 1998 AGM did soon arrive and along with it came a TermiSoc T-Shirt (Shock, Horror).

The election brought forth:

The CS open-access staff usage of flux disappeared again after the summer of 1998, possibly due to the departure of some of the CS staff. (allegedly)

At some time through the year, Tiley left the University, never to be seen again. As such Pete took on the role of PR for the rest of the year.

1999

termisoc.orgThe 1999 AGM produced:

Freshers this year was marginally farcical. The plan was to have some exhibition scaffolding for our stand and have monitors hanging from it. However, due to our stand being moved, this became impossible due to a lack of ceiling clearance. Poor turnout on the day did not help matters.

Area51 was upgraded to an enormous 20GB with 196 MB of memory!

The most notable success of this exec was the purchase and setting up of the termisoc.org domain, finally removing/reducing our reliance on the planned demise plym.ac.uk domain (but that still hasn't happened). And it's most groovy too.

The Devon & Cornwall Linux Users' Group was founded in November 1999 (https://www.dcglug.org.uk) and hosted on Area51). Always community-minded that we are.

The two notable changes in the exec during this time was the resignation of Jock, to be replaced by John 'Blindio' Murtha. And the departing of the University by Scott. It was decided that the projects role should be demised and the training and PR roles combined. Thus for the rest of the term, Marc was the PR & Training Officer.

2000

The 2000 AGM brought forth:

What's going to happen now? Who knows?

Anyway, I'm off to graduate.

Moose's Demise and Rise of TermiSoc

2000

I appeared in 2000 as an innocent quiet first year, was absconded by Bramley (Pete "Bramley" Hatton) at a freshers fayre, and four years on I never did make it as president! Well here's my stab at adding to the history of TermiSoc ;) When I first appeared the exec looked something like

As far as I can remember, lots of socials, decent running machines, a TermiLan and some tutorials. A couple of ambulances got called to our socials and there were several incidents with a server or two and a few members tunnelling in and out!

The AGM of 2001 brought forward a new exec:

2001

After lowering the membership to £1 and a good 40 members joining up, a few good socials and some exciting moments with the servers, suddenly it all went very pear-shaped and we ended up with a new exec

2002

Everything kinda died, I left for my placement and lucky Ian 'pookey' Christian took over the running of the TermiSoc Boxes. In 2002 the exec stood as (without an AGM)

Area51 and Esra died in this time, brought back to life by Pookey and Theo. Not much really happened, people got signed up a few pounds was made, some pints were drunk and a few websites were created.

Now heres where it starts to get interesting again. Chap called Ryan Smith signed up in the first year and saw the 'potential' of TermiSoc. So during 2002 a new exec was formed

2003

Not much more happened, the server kept ticking over until September 2003 which bought in a new exec (without an AGM once again!)

A decent presence at the freshers fayre got us a good membership at £3 a head and things started to look up. Many pints again started to get drunk and TermiSoc got back on it's feet. Then in January some of the exec left us and we reformed with a new exec for the next couple of months.

2004

These couple of months TermiSoc was busy. Server upgrades, member drives, tutorials, socials, trips to trade shows the lot, it was like 1996 all over again. And then shock horror we had an AGM which has brought forward the following new exec.

We can only hope for more great things…!

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  • Last modified: 2023/02/10 13:34
  • by skippy