How it all began..

This electronic magazine was created in a basement in one of the suburbs of Montreal, Canada. Initially it was nothing more than a distraction from the daily gruel of completing an Electrical Engineering degree at Concordia University. 

The first issue was a review of a CD, a PJ Harvey title or something, back in February 1995. The reception and attention that the e-newsletter got right from the beginning was impressive. Back then it wasn't an Internet destination or site homepage, rather the e-newsletter was posted on a university electronic bulletin board, which could be accessed via the Internet. 

The Net then, which was void of all of the congestion it has reached today. Of course you could still surf and browse plenty of useless pages then, like someone's personal CD collection classified and indexed 10 different ways, a picture of someone's car next to his 10-speed bike, and tons of resumes of students. Over all the Internet was mostly uncharted territory, and hence a real attraction and hang-out for the University crowd. This was the curiosity that set the scene for the first review, the first couple of issues of the e-newsletter was called ILA Music Reviews. The name itself was half-jokingly put together, not tremendously original but it suited at the time. ILA is ALI (my middle name) spelled backwards.

As the numbers of readers began to grow, it was decided that it would serve better to use a PC to generate the e-newsletter, rather than the vi editor on the VAX mainframe in the computer science department. The e-letter was then moved onto a webpage from the school newsgroups. The e-zine was hosted on a student Internet account (on personal webspace that the school assigned to every student, a whopping 2.5 megs of space). The site featured music and movie reviews. Now using WordPerfect (on a 386SX PC), to create the e-zine, the site was renamed to Eye-Net Reviews. The stone had started rolling and was beginning to gather momentum.

About a year later, early 1996, the name was changed yet again, to Zone 451°, as a result of a call from a team of corporate lawyers from Toronto. A city newspaper had registered the business name Eye-Net, but not the domain. They were hosting their own site, and felt the best way to defend their site was to call up this student in Montreal and threaten to sue him...well they won. After some brainstorming, and  pondering for some literary inspiration, the name Zone 451° appeared, a derivation of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Not the most obvious connection, but, that was okay, it lent itself to the "hip and cool" feel that our readers expected from us. (Bradbury's novel is about an Orwellian future where firemen burn books because they are banned in society, 450 degrees is the absolute temperature at which paper burns).

Zone 451° at its apex in Montreal, was the most popular e-zine in the city. The Zone crew consisted of 26 independent writers, gfx artists, coders, and programmers.  Zone 451° was the first e-zine to become accredited as the first Internet media for the Montreal Expos, the National Hockey League, as well as other sports and media camps. Up against corporate backed electronic 'zines, we fared far better, probably because we were all students, broke, and had to prove something to the world, anything less would not have been hardcore! 

After operating successfully for a couple of years, Zone451.com was re-launched from Dallas as JustSayGo.com. The zine is now reborn under the same name, and a new crew. Our goal is the same as it has always been, if the crowd is going zing, we're going zang. We welcome all support, and are always interested in talking with like minds! So enjoy the site while you're here, and if you have anything to say, feel free to drop us an email admin@JustSayGo.com.