A bulletin board for Lancaster University members has been in existence since 1987. Over the years there have been many changes to the admin team, the coders and design and functionality of the board itself. On this page there is a brief history of the development of LUBBS.
So, how did it start?
Andrew Banks (The MicroManiac) wrote the original BBs, in C-Shell
script, which went live in November 1987. It used an elm based message reader, and you were not allowed to
directly post messages. This board was in fact, like all good things then, not
officially approved (tsk tsk) :)
The 'Powers That Be' (PTB) soon got to hear of it once it started to get popular. But they liked it, and the BBs got official recognition and was given its own account.
On the graduation of Andrew Banks, the post of moderator was taken by Tony Piper (Boris the Frog) and Adrian Hall (Catharz) appointed himself programmer. With the ideas of Boris the Frog, LUBBS was re-written during 1989-1990 in ANSI C, to provide a fairly interactive board.
Recognising the severe limitations of the original LUBBS, and the benefits of providing a more powerful and comprehensive system, Graham Dean (Frustrated)
and Andrew Stoker (Ezra Jones) obtained the sources for Unaxcess, a widely used
and well respected bulletin board system, and extensively modified these to suit the needs of the Lancaster users. Mike Pacey (Tenebreux) took over as the
moderator. After inital problems with the PTB and slowing the system down, the
user base grew phenominally (from about 50-60 users to over 200). Eventually
checking the messages got to take up too much time for Ez and Teneb, so
Moderators for particular conferences were brought in with a controlling sysop.
Bruce Keeler (Loodvrij) took over as sysop and programmer for LUBBS in June
1991 in continuing the development of LUBBS for Lancaster Users. In February
1992 Chris Martin (Phoenix) was appointed Sysop, a position which he held til
February 1994. Kevin Sherratt (Drax) took over as the Sysop and Chris took
on the job of programming the wee beastie.
February 1996 saw Kevin's brother, Andrew Sherratt (The Face) take over as Sysop, holding the position for 12 months before Robert Fay (Mordred) was appointed.
He also held the post for a year before, in February 1998, Martje Graham-Ross (Starling) became the first woman and first non-student to be the LUBBS Sysop, being a member of University staff. Since then there has been a change of Sysop almost annually (see the Sysop Hall of Fame below).
LUBBS is a flourishing bulletin board for students containing lively debates on a wide
range of issues.
In March 2006, due to constant demand, the web based LUBBS Alumni was launched for staff and students who had moved away from Lancaster University and were no longer able to access LUBBS. Organised by Judith Hunter (Hedgehog) and Iain Fothergill (Teschi), word rapidly spread and many old friends were reacquainted. Plans for further developments are ongoing...
LUBBS Logos
The ASCII Logo
This logo has been used on the bulletin board since about 1990 and is still in use today. It appears above the main menu of LUBBS and will be familiar to nearly all LuBBers from across the years. It has also been used on some of the LUBBS t-shirts that were produced and has been incorporated into the logo of LUBBS Alumni.
The Oval Logo
In 1999 the LUBBS oval logo was created and used on the first LUBBS related web site (both designed by Eric the Half-a-bee). The logo was re-designed by Chandler for use on the t-shirts that were produced for the members. The embroidered logo continued to be used on t-shirts until 2003.
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The Rectangular Logo
In 2003 both the LUBBS web site and logo were updated by Jenny Red. A competition was held on LUBBS asking its members to submit suggestions for logos and vote for their favourite. The eventual winner was the one you see today - a pastiche homage to the Think Geek logo (a popular site for LUBBS members with a taste for penguin mints). The logo was screen printed on the t-shirts produced that year and has remained at the head of the web site to this day.
