Bobosama. How did you discover abandonware? And how did you first get involved with it?

Back in 98 or 99, I had discovered a site known as OldNet, which featured a mixture of abandonware and old warez such as Discworld, Doom, etc. I had visited the site for about a year, thinking it was godly, when one day an announcement was posted that the site had closed. One of their affiliates was a site known as 3k Industries, so I clicked on the link and was redirected to Diskworld

Diskworld was a pure abandonware site; it was currently at version 2.0. I found the design and content to be of the highest quality. From there I spun off to find sites such as Classic Trash and the Home of the Underdogs. However, I was still an OldWarez fella and began a site known as Anime-Crib Abandonware. I ran an abandonware site in early 1999 and had a year left on the domain, so I used it

The site lasted for about two weeks, and I had contacted Diskboy to affiliate with him. He told me that my site had OldWarez, and from there I found out all about clean Abandonware

At first, I wanted to create a site with thousands of games. I also wanted something that nobody had done, so I spent a few weeks downloading thousands of Apple IIe ROMs, testing them, zipping them, and I started a site known as Anime-Crib Apple IIe Abandonware

It was purely HTML-based with a layout consisting of some frames and a single background image. I had over 2000 titles with nothing but file sizes, publisher names, and download links. It was this site that joined 4Ham and Diskworld initially (I hadn’t joined any rings yet). Then I had come to realize the importance of screenshots and reviews for creating a quality site.

Diskworld had just unleashed V3, and I paid Diskboy to create me a PHP-coded site. We came up with the name Wizardware, and I bought the domain wizardware.org, so the site known as WizardWare AbandonWare came to be. The reviews were short, the screenshots few, and it received poor ratings, and I was infuriated. I wanted to create a 4-to-5-star site, not a 2-star site.

I realized that I must do it myself if I will ever become truly dedicated to the site. Diskboy had unleashed Diskworld V4 when I had closed WizardWare. He let me keep the name “EmuGateway” which he thought up for a site that never took off. Through some Streamload message boards, I was sent 89 Neo-Geo ROMs. I was stunned by their quality and the fact that the system was abandoned and so little known. I had contacted NeoPickaze, being a big fan of EchoRing, and asked him if he could help me out with a layout for EmuGateway. He had previously made a layout for WizardWare V2.0 (back in 01), but I decided not to go through with it. I had learned ASP, modified Neo’s template, bought the domain emugateway.com, and unleashed the website. By its final days, the site had an impressive 79 games with full reviews and 5 screenshots each, along with cheat codes and manuals. It was well approved and beloved by all, receiving 500+ uniques a day. I preferred to call it my one success up until that day, but an average Neo-Geo game is about 10 MB. And with that many visitors, I soon couldn’t afford the bill, so I was forced to close down the site.

I attempted to reopen with only small games, but the site lost its popularity because of that and eventually closed again with only 21 titles. I had reviewed 5 or so Neo-Geo games for Diskworld as I was given ownership of version 5.0. Furthermore, I had optimized a few things and updated a bit when I realized the same thing I realized with WizardWare: I did not create this, it doesn’t belong to me, I have no connection to it, and thus no motivation.

For a while I simply sat around doing nothing; I had various people submit WizardWare 2.0 layouts, but I wanted to create one myself. Before EmuGateway, Gianni and I founded Creative-Eye. We had ripped off the layout from another site and got busted, and combined with server troubles, we split our different ways; however, Gianni had recommended Fireworks MX as a program for image editing. Since that day, I have been using it for all my graphic works.

I fired up Fireworks MX on my Mac, and in 4 hours of work, I came up with my own WizardWare 2.0 layout. I spent several weeks doing the code and bulletproofing it. Finally, it was unleashed, but I no longer had the inertia to update after a database failure. So I added all the Neo-Geo games to it from an old database and sold it off to Gianni.

That’s it if I don’t mention Echo.

Wow, quite a story indeed. But now, I would like to know how you got the idea to resurrect EchoRing. Or why you were interested in running an abandonware ring in general.

Back in the glory days of EmuGateway, Gianni was starting up the Emulation Ring. So I had decided to expand the EmuGateway into an EmuNetwork of sites. Therefore, I decided to create a ring known as EmuWare.

I intended for it to be original, but all the things I incorporated had been done before I was bashed by other ring owners, as often happens when starting a new ring. We were just starting to pick up with about 7 or 8 members when I had to take down EmuGateway, and without the network, I saw no reason for EmuWare. I had only recently opened WizardWare 2.0 to find EchoRing hasn’t been updated for once by its new owners. I was simply outraged. Not only that, but I was also thinking about reopening ACRing a few weeks back, but I didn’t think I could live up to the expectations.

Vinny the Saint and I got to talking about buying back the ring, but we had no reply from the owners. So he had said he had the .co.uk domain, and he could lend it to me if I were to create a new EchoRing. Jumping at the opportunity, in just under a week I designed and coded the ring. After some initial server trouble, we were up and running with more members in the first few days than many other rings that had recently opened. Some people disapproved of the ring; others thought there was no point to it, while the true Echo fans were delighted to see it resurrected.

In the end, everyone came around in one way or another, and EchoRing has prospered.

Again, it’s really quite interesting, all these happenings of yours.  And there isn’t really any other specific thing I’d like to ask. So, if there’s anything else you want to say, go ahead.

Haha, what a great interviewer you are .

Basically, like all people who enter the scene, I wanted to open the next HOTU to get big and famous, but I didn’t know the inner workings and who to trust. Now that I’m more mature and better adapted, I hope to open up a big site in the future with a big crew and high quality

So stay tuned. Anymore questions?

Oh, yeah. That’s the other thing I was going to ask. Any plans for the future?  Well, now that we know that there very well may be, we’ll all be lying in wait to see what happens. Thanks for your time, Bobosama. Hope EchoRing lives on!