# TUG History Lesson!



## brucecz (Jul 29, 2011)

Brian,  on the home page it states Tug was started in 1991.  My question is when did Tug start their website?  Was it also 1991 or or later? 

Bruce


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## TUGBrian (Jul 29, 2011)

what part of the homepage says TUG started in 91?  TUG was officially founded in october of 1993


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## brucecz (Jul 29, 2011)

TUGBrian said:


> what part of the homepage says TUG started in 91?  TUG was officially founded in october of 1993



Sorry, my typo mistake, you are correct.  It was another site that said they were started in 1991 but it did not state if started as a website or as magazine.  Was 1993 the first year Tug had a website or did that come later?

Bruce


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## TUGBrian (Jul 29, 2011)

good question, I was in college at the time and not involved with TUG so to be honest im not exactly sure, but Ill ask my father next time I talk to him!  I am pretty sure the website did start in '93 however.

I believe its timesharing today that started in 1991.


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## brucecz (Jul 29, 2011)

TUGBrian said:


> good question, I was in college at the time and not involved with TUG so to be honest im not exactly sure, but Ill ask my father next time I talk to him!  I am pretty sure the website did start in '93 however.
> 
> I believe its timesharing today that started in 1991.



Thanks for your reply.  Hope your father is doing well and I will be interested to find out when Tug  first stated on the web.

Yes you are correct as that was what they have on their website and that is why I made my typo mistake.  But I do not know when they started their website.

Bruce


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## taffy19 (Oct 3, 2011)

brucecz said:


> Thanks for your reply.  Hope your father is doing well and I will be interested to find out when Tug  first stated on the web.
> 
> Yes you are correct as that was what they have on their website and that is why I made my typo mistake.  But I do not know when they started their website.
> 
> Bruce


Weren't you on Prodigy before?  I seem to remember that but I wasn't a paid member yet.  I found the website later when I came back.

Fern should know it because I remember her from Prodigy.


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## TUGBrian (Oct 3, 2011)

yes, "tug" actually started as a prodigy message board (bbs) as a group of timeshare owners posting messages to/for each other.


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## Fern Modena (Oct 3, 2011)

I do know.  The earliest BBS posting I can find is 11/09/96.  I used the Wayback Machine to check the date.  You can click here to see it.  From the landing page, click TUG BBS on the left to see the BBS.  You can access most of the board's pages, but not the individual notes.  

Still it is interesting, because some of the names on the various notes are ones you know...me, of course, John Chase, Doug Wilson, Mark Perry, Pat Hart, David Henry, Bruce Bailey, Kathy Pitch, John Cummings, and Deb Brown.  I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones I've easily picked out.  Of the nine, btw, I've had the pleasure of meeting six.

Fern



brucecz said:


> Sorry, my typo mistake, you are correct.  It was another site that said they were started in 1991 but it did not state if started as a website or as magazine.  Was 1993 the first year Tug had a website or did that come later?
> 
> Bruce


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## Fern Modena (Oct 3, 2011)

Emmy,
In answer to yours above, yes Bill Rogers was on Prodigy first.   There was a military man there (can't remember his name any more) who kept a file of all the reviews of timeshares on Prodigy's board.  He gave them to Bill, and Bill sent out the original TUG Newsletter.  Then for awhile TUG had a dialup system where you could get the reviews via telnet (correct me, or give me the correct terminology please, John Chase).  Very few did that, because it took a tiny bit of geekiness, and most people were on Prodigy or AOL in those days.  

Eventually Lawrence Chan came along.  I met him at the second NorCal TUGgers gathering along with Mark Perry and a couple of other people.  By this time Prodigy had wound down, and there was no place to really "talk timeshare." Bill Rogers wanted to have a Bulletin Board, if I would run it for him (which I eventually did, with John Cummings for awhile and then others) Lawrence and I began talking about the BBS and he thought he could do the coding for it.  He did it, and what you see in the note above is what the result was.  

Fern


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## timeos2 (Oct 3, 2011)

Fern - Wasn't it on Compuserve in the real early days? I seem to recall coming across it there in my relatively short (2+ years) of that service.  That was a customized version of telnet so technically you're in the right mode. 

It was much more active on Prodigy (wow- that seems like eons ago now!) and then right after OS/2 made the corporate world realize the potential of the world wide web the web took off as a consumer experience.  I remember saying back in 1993/4 "why would anyone want to be on the internet if they aren't in need of technical advice?"  Oh well, Bill Gate's once famously said "Who would need more than 64k?"  If only he had stuck to that minimalist approach we'd be better off today. But TUG evolved in a much better way than MS products ever did. 

This thread has two conversations I think!  But to keep to the original topic taking a big deduction for any timeshare that had to be given away / donated or paid to be disposed of is a big risk. The method of disposal alone says it's got no value in the free market.


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## Fern Modena (Oct 4, 2011)

John,
Yes, C/S was in the mix for awhile.  Also another service which I can't remember the name of...was it Sprintnet or anything like that?  I can't remember, but it was pretty difficult on us non-techies, just as C/S was.

Fern


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## TUGBrian (Oct 4, 2011)

split this thread out from the IRS accountant one!


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## Fern Modena (Oct 4, 2011)

Thanks, Brian.  Good to have some of the history somewhere, since it does get asked from time to time.

Fern


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## pedro47 (Oct 4, 2011)

Fern Modena said:


> I do know.  The earliest BBS posting I can find is 11/09/96.  I used the Wayback Machine to check the date.  You can click here to see it.  From the landing page, click TUG BBS on the left to see the BBS.  You can access most of the board's pages, but not the individual notes.
> 
> Still it is interesting, because some of the names on the various notes are ones you know...me, of course, John Chase, Doug Wilson, Mark Perry, Pat Hart, David Henry, Bruce Bailey, Kathy Pitch, John Cummings, and Deb Brown.  I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones I've easily picked out.  Of the nine, btw, I've had the pleasure of meeting six.
> 
> Fern



I wish the some of the above historian's could share with us neophyte the many trends you have experience in the timeshare industry. The good and the bad.


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## Passepartout (Oct 4, 2011)

timeos2 said:


> It was much more active on Prodigy (wow- that seems like eons ago now!)



It certainly does. I remember joining by sending a check to Bill Rogers. I really can't remember just why I joined. I didn't own a TS, but thought it was a good concept.

I was getting my 'internet' via Prodigy. One reason one chose which portal to use was by which had a local access number. Where I lived in Boise at the time (through the 90's) Compuserve required a long distance call. This was in my MS DOS days. Maybe even on a 2400 baud modem- certainly no more than 4800. Anyway, TUG had a presence on Prodigy, and Fern's Cafe was prominent. Prodigy either faltered or stopped supporting DOS, and I hadn't migrated to Windows. Seems to me that I got notice that my TUG 1 yr membership was expiring at about the time DOS stopped being viable. I bought a Windoze box, 9600 baud modem and subscribed to AOL. Sorry to say I didn't re-up with TUG.

Now if I'd bought MS stock back then instead of trivialities like food, clothing and shelter, life would be much different today. But that's life.

Thanks for the journey down Memory Way.

Jim Ricks


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