THE
HISTORY OF BACK TO THE ROOTS
I created this page
on 30.06.98 because I saw that I
had many games and demos, which
the world had never seen online
before. Back to the Roots (BTTR),
was planned as a site which
features mostly rare games. I
wouldn´t upload games like Alien
Breed or Cadaver, which were
online at every other site. I
wanted to give people some really
rare stuff... And therefore I´ve
founded BTTR with 11MB webspace
on a Tripod Server.
I quickly found a logo for my
site, because I´m a big demo
freak and therefore I knew this
amazing ROOTS logo from COUGAR.
And the title "Back to the
Roots" was a perfect name
for a site, which would give
people some memories back. Also
it was clear for me, not to make
only another games only page,
because my love to scene demos
was and is too big. It was clear
for me to upload some great demos
too.
And then I´ve
started with my page. I´ve
uploaded a few rare games, one
great demo and three excellent
pictures from the demo scene. My
site wasn´t legal - I didn´t
know anything about the IDSA, the
ELSPA or whatever these
organizations are called. I
didn´t known that Amiga games
are still under copyright and
that it is illegal to distribute
them on the net. I´ve thought
the same as thousands of other
peoples: Amiga games are old,
aren´t available any longer and
therefore nobody cares about
them. I´ve started like all the
other
Amiga emulation sites... On a
public server with no knowledge
and "illegal" games.
I´ve made a new update every
week. I deleted the games and
demos from the last week and have
uploaded new stuff. I was the
first who has brought games like
Personal Nightmare, Twinworld,
Space Quest IV, Waxworks, Mission
Impossible 2025, Hexuma, Beast
Lord, USS John Young, Tennis Cup,
the Adventures of Willy Beamish,
Miami Chase and lots of other
rare games to the net.
After a few weeks I was tired in
deleting every week the files,
which I had uploaded. I needed
more webspace. Therefore I´ve
signed up a new account at
Fortune City. 30MB webspace - a
dream for me :-)
I got more and more accounts at
those free servers like
Geocities, Fortune City or
Webjump. Soon I have had over
100MB webspace and BTTR was
growing... But I was not always
happy, because my accounts were
been deleted very often... But I
have never given up. Also I
included a mods section. Mostly
with tunes from the demo scene.
And a few days later I´ve added
a PC Demos section. Many groups,
who have left the Amiga scene are
now creating demos on the PC and
I would show these excellent
demos also to the Amiga emulation
world. After all the positive
response about my PC Demos
section, it was really a good
idea...
The 22.12.1998 was a day, which
changed my Amiga emulation life
completely. The best Amiga
Emulation site forever - LAZARUS
- has been shut down by the IDSA,
an organization which closes
sites who offers copyrighted
material. This was a day, where I
thought about BTTR. I made the
decision to delete all my games
because I wanted to be safer and
it could be that you must pay a
huge fine, if you´re
distributing
illegal material over the net,
even if the Amiga games are no
longer available or the company
don´t exist any longer. A
copyright for those games still
exists - that´s a fact. Only
demos and pictures were available
at BTTR for the next 3 weeks.
Then I´ve started in uploading
some really great PD and
advertising games. But I´ve
always thinked about how I can
upload a few of the old classic
games to my site. And I´ve
decided to try my luck at some
software companies. I´ve asked
them if they could give me a
permission to put their old Amiga
games online at my site for a
legal download. It was a lot of
work to tell the companies more
about Amiga emulation (not every
company was informed!), I´ve
written tons of letters - often
without success. Most of the
companies won´t reply to such
mails, but I have had success at
some companies. Most companies
have given me the exclusiv
permission - this means that
their games are only legal at my
site. They will never appear for
a legal dowload at other sites.
BTTR was the first site, who has
walked on this way and who was
able to upload old commercial
Amiga games with an official
permission from a software
company. Of course these games
are NOT Freeware. The companies
are still the owners of the
copyrights, but you can download
these games from my site without
such a boring disclaimer
"delete those games after 24
hours if you don´t own the
original".
And now BTTR is a completely
legal Amiga emulation site.
In April 1999 I was contacted by
Emulators Unlimited. They offered
to host my site. It was a great
honor for me - such a famous site
will host my site. That meant
unlimited webspace, no Tripod pop
up banners any longer, a faster
server... All my webspace
problems were over... I couldn´t
say no. And BTTR found a new home
at EU.
After I´ve joined
the EU family the traffic for my
page was getting higher and
higher... Too much work for one
person. Therefore I´ve asked a
buddy of mine - Dynamo88 - if he
would like to help me a little
bit. Mostly in answering emails.
Sometimes with a little update.
And he was very happy about that.
He has joined BTTR. Dynamo88 was
not a newbie in the Amiga
Emulation scene. He has
maintained an own, completely
german Amiga Emulation site from
April 1998 till October 1998.
Then the page was deleted and he
has never started a comeback...
...and that´s the history of
BTTR :-)
Bobic
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