The Game of the Name

This looks like it should be in the FAQ. The name 'Megistos' (pronounced MEG-istos, not 'MEJistos' or 'mejISTos') is a combination of inside joke and complex pun with mythological overtones.

The mythology connection: 'Megistos' is derived from 'Hermes Trismegistos', a name attributed by the Greeks to the Egyptian god Tehuti (or maybe Djeheuti, we really don't know), or Thoth, if you like the Greek transliterations of the names of the Egyptian gods. Tehuti was, among other things, god of writing, wisdom and magic. The Greeks likened him to Hermes (aka Mercury if you like the Latin adaptations of the names of the Greek gods), hence 'Hermes Trismegistos', or Hermes the Thrice-Great. In later times, Hermes Trismegistos became the patron of alchemists, chemistry hackers of their day as it were. Megistos the BBS began as a hack, hence the name.

The pun: BBS veterans will note that many BBS software of the later years of BBSing had superlative names (to wit: Maximus and Major BBS). Megistos is just another one of them (it's Greek for 'maximum' or 'greatest'). Of course it's 'thrice great(est)', not just great. Beat that superlative if you can!

The inside joke: Megistos is my third attempt at designing BBS software. The first two, unnamed implementations failed utterly. Disk crashes (those were the days) helped, but I suspect that the choice of operating system (DOS) and programming language (Pascal with ad hoc, homemade multitasking extensions) signed the death warrant of the previous two systems.