Magic Electronics of Cranston, Rhode Island is little remembered today but in 1984 and 1985, they released over two dozen video games, a few of which were minor hits. Their most well-known games were probablyand, all of which made theand/orcharts. Most of these games have been forgotten today as had Magic Conversions. There are a number of reasons: they made only conversion kits, they released their games at the height of the industry crash, and their games were designed by or licensed from other companies and are thus not associated with Magic.

Nonetheless, Magic had a fairly interesting history. Tracing that history, however, can be difficult since it is intertwined with the history of a number of other companies and tangentially related to even more. In fact, I could have called this article "the tangled history of Ferncrest Distributors/Omni Video Games/Glak Associates/Eagle Conversions/Magic Conversions/Epos Corporation/Cardinal Amusements/Montgomery Vending/Magic Electronics"but that doesn't really roll off the tongue.

The main connections between Magic and its direct ancestors were two men: Frank Gaglione and Kevin McIntyre, who served as President and VP of most of them. Their history starts with another Rhode Island company called Omni Video Games.

Of all the companies associated with Magic Electronics, Omni Video Games is the most famous, largely because of their role in thecase, one of the most influential and important cases in video game history. Omni was headed, and likely founded, by Frank Gaglione. Little is known about Gaglione’s early life. It appears that he may have been born in 1913. On April 2, 2013, the Rhode Island Senate passed a resolution honoring Frank Gaglione of Providence on his 100birthday ( http://webserver.rilin.state.ri.us/BillText13/SenateText13/S0805.pdf ).

Given the name and the fact that Gaglione’s business were all in the Providence area, it seems likely that this is the same person (a Frank Gaglione who died in Buffalo in 1997 appears to be a different person). By 1980, Gaglione had established a company called Ferncrest Distributors in Warwrick, RI to distribute slot machines and video games for Universal and other coin-op companies. I am not sure exactly when Omni was founded but it appears to have been around 1980. According to the records of the Rhode Island Secretary of State, Omni Video Games, Inc. was

incorporated on June 24, 1980 as Omni Gaming Systems, Inc. The incorporation record claims that

the name was changed to Omni Video Games. Inc. in 1993, and lists

Barbara Maggiacomo listed as president (whose address is listed as 123 Shadow Brook Lane in Warwick)

.

It also claims that Omni filed the fictitious name of Elm Manufacturing on 3/12/84. I'm not sure this is the same company, but given the name and the Warwick association, it seems likely). Frank Gaglione's name doesn't appear on the summary of the incorporation record on the Sec. of State website, but it might appear in the actual articles (articles of incorporation generally include officers of the company)

Omni produced at least a dozen-and-a-half titles between 1980 and 1982. A number of them seem to have been legit. The licensed a number of games, for instance from Artic Electronics/ATW USA, including Mars and Devil Fish (I believe that Artic Electronics is a different company from the Artic International that was sued by Williams and Midway. I read that they actually changed the name of their US branch to ATW to avoid confusion with the other Artic). Other Omni games, however, were anything but legitimate. Midway sued them over their bootleg versions of Pac-Man, Galaxian, and Rally-X.