The history of AMI Sector One

All began in Christmas 1997 when I got a modem. I have read about"UAE" in a computer mag before, however it seemed only to be available in the Internet. Therefore from this moment on I would be able to use my Amiga software on m y PC again. However when I began I had some problems with the disk transfer Amiga to PC, because the serial port of my old A500+ was damaged (one pin was broken). So at first i could only play games that could be found on sites like Lazarus, Trantor's Ami Crypt or Classics for UAE. It took a while until I was able to join the real Amiga emulation scene, because I didn't know that there would really be one. The first only Amiga emu site I saw was Trantor'sAmi Crypt - I followed a link on a non Amiga site, that dealt with paragliding and Star Trek ;-) The links I found at Trantor were my way into Amiga emulation scene. I checked all the sites every day for updates. In July 1998 I bought another Amiga - it was A1200 machine. This enabled me to transfer all my hundreds of games without any problems.

The wish to found my own Amiga emu site got therefore bigger and bigger. So I opened in August 1998 a site called "Amiga Sector One"on the local server of my ISP "LA Net" here in Landshut, Bavaria. In August nearly nobody knew o f my site - I only created it for me and some friends for swapping ADF's. At this time I had not yet the wish to make ASO public - it was the time of the IDSA which shut down lots of emu sites in that month. In October Lazarus got into conflict with Gateway 2000 and Gary Peake - it was another reason not to create a site for the public. But problems were solved soon at Lazarus and therefore I thought "no risk in Amiga emulation" and I mentioned the opening of my site in "Emulation Talk". The first games I offered to the public were such rare things like Dragon's Breath and Feud. People liked my site, because I uploaded more and more rare games, that have never been seen before in the Net. These were for example King's Quest 2, Donald Duck's Playground,Transarctica, Defenders of the Earth or Crystals of Arborea. I really enjoyed it to have such a popular site and so many new friends around in the Internet.

But what has happened two days before Christmas 1998? It was the"Black Friday" in the Amiga emu scene. Lazarus was forced by the IDSA to close their site. Only some hours later I removed all my ADF games from my site. In the next months things got boring. I decided to go the legal way with PD and PR games, but this was very lame. Also in January and February more and more sites closed on a free base, because they were of the opinion, that they could be fined by the IDSA. And then there was also this rumor, that the guy from "Acehole's Amiga Site" had to pay a fine, because he had a transfer programme for PC Amiga on his sit e. Things got worse and worse. In March there came so many newbies sites which could only "steal" games from other sites. March was really a bad month.In the meantime I uploaded more and more PD stuff and soon things got more indeed boring and I decided to close ASO very soon. On 7 May, however, was a phantastic day for me: Skwor offered to put his site "Skwor's little World" and my site together. This was really great, because Skwor is a real insider and has many contacts to software companies. We decided to m ake a project: Skwor is responsible for emulators, tools, how-to's, help sections and so on and my part should be games, demos, music and gfx. Then our project began - it was very much work to create new picturesof all the demos and games for the new layout , but it was worth thework.What you can see now is AMI Sector One as a completely legal Amigaemulation site with lots of exclusive permissions. It is now a part of Skwor'sand my project "Legal games for legal Amiga emulation".I hope, yes I am really sure, t hat Skwor's little World and ASO willalsogrow in the future in order to become a site, that will last.

And finally I want to answer some of Ant's questions:

Q: What are your best memories of the good times?

A: I had a nice time in the scene until 22 Dec. 1998 . A historical moment was for me, when I first played "Defender of the Crown" on the Amiga emulators. It was also a great moment, when I downloaded "Heart of China" at Back to the Roots. I hadn't played it for years...

Q: And what about the bad times?

A: All these IDSA and Gateway 2000 problems were very bad and the day I found out, that my favourite Amiga games "Kaiser" and "Dragons Breath" wouldn't run in the emulators.

Q: Any sites you disliked ( without offending any current people)

A: Yes, of course. There was one site that was called "Amiga Freaks". It was maintained by a newbie who knew nothing about the Amiga. I had a real rivalry with him and I sent him some "nice mails" which he used to publish in his news. After a while he got in conflict with his ISP, I think and the site came never again. Thank goodness!

Q: Future Hopes?

A: Yes, I want to see new sites from people that are more creative and also have new ideas. At the moment we have got enough lamer sites.

- Bernd in July 1999 -