He was too! That's where I met him and hundreds of other Mac cultists. <geeks really!>
Now time for a story. Everybody cuddle up by the fire and grab your cocao and Thorazine.
I was also a member of MAGIC - Founding Member and had a couple of conferences and was part of the MagicMedia website - as well, I was on about a dozen other Boards. It was very cool. Halcyon days I tell ya!!!
Magic started out in MW's (Merlin) basement with the help of Apple, his employer and was a modem only dial in. So damn cool in the early days.
To make a long story short MW (Merlin) turned Magic into an ISP and eventually sold the company. Good for him. I worked a lot with the folks (Cory, Ian, Mike, Linda, John etc etc and there were such cool things happnin in the CITY building.
After the buy out it ran with Total Net in MTL for a while then BCE and now rests with someone called Inter.net. - It is dormant and my attempts at contacting them have been futile. No response.. at all.
A number of years ago (as a strong SoftArc supporter and licensed user of the product at several agencies I ran) I tried to buy the name, board etc etc and revive Magic. In negotiations with BCE and Total - it went nowhere. We had some dough on the table but the corporations had Magic on their books at a very very high price. One quote was in the millions Eeeek!
The worth of the MAGIC BBS was the license deal that the original owner cut with the owners of the First Class software.
That was always the deal breaker.
There have been other Boards set up like Sanctuary, Evolution, Atavachron etc etc and I would imagine TVO is still going (Not Sure???) Since SoftArc eliminated the hobby pricing setting up a Board was astonomical for the BBs owner.
Magic was a true community - and when the Magicians migrated to other boards it was attempted - but never in the Magic mode. We had Mongles and get togethers at Apple. We met face-to-face and used our real names online. I like that. In fact that is the only negative I have with ehMac... I like real names!
I still work with, hang with, have dated even and speak with dozens and dozens of folks I met way back - even to this day. It was so damn powerful!
This wonderful ehMac community is as close as I have found. But I still miss the FisrtClass interface, the way it worked and the sparkle it had online. I always thought of Magic as an online Algonquin Rountable.
End of story ...now go to bed!
