Many of the ChessMAGIC! customers have been asking me for my side of the
story in the dispute with Tom Brady/Decibel BBS.

Termination Services
=======================
First of all, I terminated Mr. Brady's services for a variety of reasons.
He never left the association on his own, it was entirely my doing! I will 
discuss the many reasons for my decision to eliminate Mr. Brady and 
his services from the ChessMAGIC!/KnightWare products.

Reasons for Termination
=======================
 1) CMSED

    My intentions with CMSYS was to make this part of the ChessMAGIC!
    registration, not to be sold separately. Mr. Brady had persuaded me
    into limiting CMSYS so that CMSED would be that main system editor
    for ChessMAGIC!. At this time, I did not know his intentions, but
    found out quickly from one of my customers. At this time, this was
    suppose to be in whole a part of the ChessMAGIC! registration. Mr.
    Brady, behind my back, started requesting separate registration fees for
    CMSED, limiting the functionality in releases to registered ChessMAGIC!
    customers. After confronting Mr. Brady with this situation, he first
    stated he was a third party software developer and could do anything
    he liked. Also he told me he wanted to test the market before telling
    me about. He denied behemently that he was trying to keep anything
    from me. I only continued with his services at this time, because
    I was not in the situation of starting a BBS. To add injury to insult,
    he also only wanted to provide me with a miniscule portion of the
    CMSED sales. As of this date, I have never received any proceeds coming 
    from the sales of CMSED.

 2) ChessMAGIC! Support Conferences on Decibel

    Mr. Brady would not provide me any of the communications from my
    customers. I only received the information that was directly addressed
    to my BBS name. I requested this information many times from Mr. Brady,
    and he would always have some sort of excuse for not providing me with
    this information. He intentionally buffered the information from me,
    in an effort to lock him and his BBS in the association. Finally he
    set the conference up for my access, but first removed all the previous
    comminications from it! One customer had uploaded a file, containing
    the Canadian algorithmns for rating calculations, for me to incorporate
    into ChessMAGIC!. Mr. Brady deemed that it was not necessary for this
    to go into the product and would not provide the file to me. Mr. Brady
    never did have the "say so" of what went into the product. It is
    inexcusable to buffer such information from the author of the product.

 3) Developement Testing/QA files

    Mr. Brady was to provide me with the ChessMAGIC! game data base from
    his BBS weekly. When he did provide it, and it was sparse, he only
    provided portions that he decided were necessary. This handicapped
    developement testing/debugging severly.
    
 4) Theft!
 
    Mr. Brady has witheld registration money and customer information
    from me, since March 1992. I have not received a penny from any 
    registrations going through Decibel from March 1992. I also have
    not been provided customer information pertaining to these sales.
    Mr. Brady has never provided me a reason as to why he decided to
    retain monies and information which are due to myself.

 5) Last Release to Decibel

    I provided Mr. Brady the means to register ChessMAGIC! for customers.
    In the last release I provided him, in an effort to rectify the
    situation in 4 above, I altered the registration scheme, so that
    only myself could issue registered ChessMAGIC! products. Mr Brady
    never put this release on his BBS or made it available. He always
    complained about it having a bug, but would never provide me the
    information about the bug. He saw that he would lose control of
    the registrations and was going to do his darndest to keep that
    capability in his control. I could no longer "afford" for Mr. Brady
    to supply registered copies as he decided to pocket the entire 
    proceeds for himself.

 6) After all of the above, I provided Mr. Brady 30 days to respond 
    in providing me the money and customer information due, issuing the
    new release, and providing me the customer conference exchange
    of information. Mr. Brady never responded and I have "never" 
    received any of the above!

 7) On two different occaisions, Mr. Brady told me that if I dropped
    his services, he would "kill ChessMAGIC!". I could no longer tolerate
    his threats or his coersive actions in this association, so his services 
    were terminated!


Malicious Allegations
=======================
Mr. Brady has made some vocal allegations in an effort to "kill ChessMAGIC!"
as he stated he would do. He has contacted customers by voice phone, and
has posted malicious messages on his BBS. Mr. Brady is vindictive,
and this can be substantiated by several of his BBS users. He is attempting 
to punish me for dropping his services. The only person Mr. Brady is 
punishing, is himself.

 Some of Mr. Brady's Allegations

 1) I'm not the author of ChessMAGIC!

    I can assure you all the code in ChessMAGIC! was written by me,
    except for purchased libraries. All the source code is and has
    always been in my possession.

 2) I don't have the capabilities to write such a program

    Simply amazing, somebody is coding it. I have over 14 years 
    of experience in designing, developing and coding major 
    applications. 
    
 3) Backdoors are built into the program

    This one baffled me. I have no reason whatsoever to
    place a back door in ChessMAGIC!. This is a total fraudulant 
    fabrication on Mr. Brady's part. Nothing more than a lie in an 
    attempt to discredit the product and myself. 

 4) Portions of the code were pirated

    He's referring to the computer play code. I obtained this code
    several years back, and it clearly states that it could be
    used for anyone's purpose. There was no extensive documentation,
    just source code. I have removed it just to dispell any rumors.
    As I stated before, if I stepped on anyone's feet by using the
    code, I apopologize for it. There was no intent on my part to
    "pirate" anyone else's software. If I have infringed, it was
    totally unintentional and has since been corrected.

    Mr. Brady knew about this code from ChessMAGIC!'s inception,
    and knew that it was removed before his termination.


ChessMAGIC! Lives!
===========================
I've made a strong commitment to the on going success of this product as  
you can clearly see with my support BBS, Atlanta Chess, and the
new releases and enhancements that are continuing. I have enjoyed
developing this product and will continue to do so, long into the
future. I truly appreciate everyone's support!

The new computer play module, which I've named "Solo", is well
under construction. This can be intergrated into ChessMAGIC! or
utilized as a standalone door program. I'm hoping to have it
available in the third quarter of 92.
