Magic BBS

Apple Computer employee Mark Windrim founded the MAGIC (Macintosh Awareness Group in Canada) BBS as an internal user group within Apple Canada. The concept was relatively simple - educate Apple Employees about Apple technology. This was a project spearheaded by Mark. He was responsible for a string of bulletin board systems in the 80's and maintained the first official link to FidoNET in Canada. MAGIC grew internally at Apple, and people outside the company started calling Mark about gaining access to this user group. One can only suspect that he figured that there was a growing need for such a service, and decided to take the concept to the leadership within Apple. What happened internally is a secret that Mark has never spoken about. The result is relatively clear though - the largest Macintosh User Group in the world was created and grew as Mark worked at Apple. MAGIC used the first graphical interface for BBS's enabled by the FirstClass system, produced by the Canadian firm SoftArc. SoftArc apparently became an investor in Mark's commercial operation. MAGIC, and Mark, was likey responsible for the Explosive Growth in the SoftArc FirstClass platform.

MAGIC started in 1989, and quickly grew outside its two public lines. Intervention from Bell was necessary to grow the system beyond its second line, and additional lines were added to take the initial tranche of lines to 24. These 24 lines were saturated within a month. Bell Canada initially refused to install more than two lines into a private residence, but Bell was a major Mac user at the time and many of Magic's callers were Bell employees. After major internal wrangling a new telephone pole was installed, offering up to 50 lines for the quickly growing system. The informal Friday-night meetings evolved into fully official monthly meetings at Apple Canada's headquarters in northern Toronto, where representatives of various Mac software companies would show off their latest products. Members of the system also met socially on Fridays for drinks. MAGIC had quickly become the largest Macintosh community on Earth.

Magic quickly outgrew itself. Mark had INCredible costs to maintain for a free system, and had to come up with ways for the system to generate revenue. He left Apple in 1994 to make MAGIC a commercial success, and had apparently over 10,000 people ready to sign up. Apple was introducing their new service, eWorld of which Mark was the Canadian responsible for its launch. What happened at this point isn't known publicly - Mark left Apple and created MAGIC as a commercial entity. Apple continued to provide some level of support online until 1996 when Mark merged the Ontario and Manitoba operations of MAGIC with Total.NET of Montreal - a Canadian dialup internet service provider. Total.net was later purchased by MPACT/Immedia which later became BCE Emergis a division of Bell Canada. Rumour has it that Mark stayed through all these transitions and eventually left Bell in 2004.