area code 418

Every area code of an urban metropolitan area was a distinct cyberspace ecosystem of BBSes, some denser and more thriving than others. Area code 418 encompassed the area around Quebec City, the capital city of Quebec, Canada, and between Quebec's cultural solitude within anglo Canada, tempered with the more international cultural aspirations they inherited from France, they were prepared to make their own fun, and they were close enough to the NorTel technological heart of Canadian tech to bring the party online.

They had plenty of underground BBSes served by plenty of underground computer artists, often organized in locally-based crews such as [Astek] and [Irato]. They even had an EFNet IRC channel, #knife, and the area code's underground history was diligently documented in early issues of our Kithe e-mag. [Eerie]'s BBS [Sarcastic Toaster] acted as a local hub for this activity, and right off the bat he jumped in organizing an entirely 418-based division of Mist Classic immediately upon launch, though he was careful to keep himself at arm's length from it as soon as he'd got things cooking. As ambassador to his distant realm The Extremist started serving in his stead from [City iZ Burning] BBS, but once Thext established the [TABHouse] in area code 604 that side of our community, always only tenuously reached by sporadic long distance echomail calls (the same foundational problem that troubled iMPERiAL), was officially sundered forever. In practice our 418 division, vital as it was upon launch, only hung in through our first year, but we remember and celebrate the honest and lonely work put in by Zoltar, The Naughty Tycoon, Aristote, Mister Wrong and especially our titan on the ground there, Diamond Traveler.

Young's BBS The Cannibal Cookhouse was also a notable place to go when you were calling in to 418-based underground artscene BBSes. Demozoo maintains a listing of 418-based scene BBSes, many of which were seen promoted in early Mist Classic artpacks by local artists (eg. Wave of Weirdness, Infernal Crypt, Noise Patch.)

More broadly, the 418 area code was initially assigned to the whole of eastern Quebec back in 1947, inheriting the sparsely-inhabited northwestern Quebec to its portfolio in 1957 and for a time ('58-'70s) including the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories (later reassigned to area code 819). By 2006 its available numbers were nearly all allocated, so it was overlaid with area code 581 in 2007 (and area code 367 nine years after that for the same reason... area code 273 is waiting in the eaves for introduction into the same area in 2027!) -- presumably late enough to not have had any significant impact on their local BBS scene.

Other large cities served by area code 418 include Saguenay, Lévis, Rimouski, and Saint-Georges, as well as the Maine hamlet of Estcourt Station (population 4.)