JaG: Bobosama. How did you discover abandonware? And how did you first get involved with it?
BoboSama: Back in 98 or 99 I had discovered a site known as OldNet which featured a mixture of Abandonware and OldWarez 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
BoboSama: 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 spanned 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 99 and had a year left on the domain so I used it
BoboSama: 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 started a site known as Anime-Crib Apple IIe Abandonware it was purely HTML based with a layout consisiting 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 payed 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, 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 trully dedicated to the site
BoboSama: 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 prefered to call it my one success up until that day. But an average Neo-Geo game is about 10mb and with that many visitors I soon couldnt 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
BoboSama: I had reviewed 5 or so Neo-Geo games for Diskworld as I was given ownership of version 5.0. 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 doesnt 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 me Fireworks MX as a program for image editing since that day, I have been using it for all my graphics works. I fired up Fireworks MX on my Mac and in 4 hours of work came up with my own WizardWare 2.0 layout/ I spent several weeks doing the code and bullet proofing 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, thats it if I dont mention EchoRing.
JaG: 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.
BoboSama: 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, so I decided to create a ring known as EmuWare. I intended for it to be original but all of the things I incorporated had been done before. I was bashed by other ring owners as happens often when starting a new ring, we were just starting to pickup 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. I was also thinking about reopening ACRing a few weeks back but I didnt think I could live up to the expectations. The Saint and I got a talking about buying back the ring but we had no reply from the owners, so he had said he has 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 a lot of other rings which had recently opened. Some people disapproved of the ring, others though there was no point to it while the true echo fans were delighted to see it ressurected, in the end, everyone came around in one way or another and EchoRing has prospered
JaG: 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.
BoboSama: 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 didnt know the inner workings and who to trust. Now that I am 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.
BoboSama: anymore questions?
JaG: Oh, yeah. That's the other thing I was gonna ask. Any plans for the future? Well, now that we know that there very well may be, we'll all be waiting to see what happens. Thanks for your time, Bobosama. Hope EchoRing lives on!
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