The most popular Amiga program ever? We had a chat with Christian Bartsch who worked X-Copy publisher Cachet.
We have talked a lot about Amiga games here on Spillhistorie.no, but if we had to guess, there was one program that was far more popular on the platform than almost any game released for it: X-Copy. This program allowed Amiga users to copy entire disks, even if those disks didn’t use standard AmigaDOS – and thus, it quickly became the favorite tool of those who wanted to copy games. In other words, the vast majority of Amiga owners, who typically owned a small handful of original games and several disk boxes full of pirated games.
The slightly ironic part is that X-Copy was also a commercial product, which, of course, was heavily pirated. The program came from the German company Cachet Software, and we have spoken with Cachet veteran Christian Bartsch – who now works with the KryoFlux system used for digitizing and preserving disks – about the history of X-Copy. We have also learned exciting details about Cachet Software and how KryoFlux came into existence.
How was X-Copy originally created, and what was the intention behind the program?
X-Copy Professional was originally programmed by Frank Neuhaus and Hans Georg Berg for Cachet Software, but there is a long story which has never before been documented in detail.
Frank and Hans Georg released a single floppy copier named White Lightning, and right after it a program called Fast Lightning through Vesalia Computer in 1988. Vesalia was run by the Does family, by the way, they kept the spirit for decades and were in business until recently.
Unfortunately Vesalia did not realise the need and potential of a decent copy program. They only sold about 500 copies of it in total. Frank and Hans Georg were very disappointed about the low sales performance.
At the same time Claus Peter Lippert (Cachet’s CEO) was working for American publisher Discovery Software as their head of European Operations. Also being a journalist and a member of CRM Crew, he not only knew the best Amiga experts but also understood the market.
When Discovery Software shut down their operations, all their European developers – including Søren «Sodan» Grønbench and Torben Bakager Larsen (who Lippert had found and brought to Discovery with their game Sword Of Sodan) – were in danger of not getting paid the money Discovery owed them for their work. Frank Georg, who was the programmer of the game Zoom at the time, was also in danger of having his work exploited.
Because of this, Claus Peter Lippert used all the money of the European branch of Discovery, which he collected from the sales of Arkanoid Amiga to Rushware and others, to pay out Frank and other European programmers affiliated with Discovery Software, and quit working for them. Then the German Amiga «elite» had a weekend meeting in Ludwigshafen at the Heinrich Pesch Haus and discussed what to do.
Claus sponsored the whole thing through his company Cachet Software, which he had founded a few years before and it was agreed that Cachet would, amongst games, also acquire the copyrights of X-Copy Amiga, since he guaranteed that he could market X-Copy Amiga in the way it deserved.
Claus knew what he was doing because Discovery Software had also been the home of Marauder II, a very successful Amiga copier. X-Copy Amiga was the perfect tool to kick Marauder II and other programs out of the market. While Marauder II cracked software and (illegally) modified the copy protection (by altering the disk’s contents during or after replication), X-Copy Amiga on the other hand never did that or needed to do that. It was designed to keep the protection in place, so that people who bought an original could play the game with their backup. And it had a superior copy speed over anything else. At that time, no other program came anywhere near that. And we had the famous Boing! sound.
But there was more. Whilst Frank and Hans Georg were absolute programming wizards, Claus Peter Lippert was good in design and marketing. He knew what the users needed, and X-Copy Amiga was shaped to that need. It got several copy modes and various abilities and above all, it was designed to be user friendly. Cachet created the word «usability» for that, meaning «start it and be able to use it right away.»
What initially was just a copier – X-Copy – then turned into a suite of tools. When Frank and HG as well as Richard left, Holger Vocke took over X-Copy development and Alf Meier maintained Cyclone [more on this and other Cachet products later]. In 1994, X-Copy TNG was the world market leader in sales numbers of all Amiga Utilities and it remained so until Commodore chairman Irving Gould managed to sink Commodore and its flagship the Amiga… which was not easy, but he managed.
There are several more interesting stories about and around X-Copy Amiga which can be told some other time, like: Christmas and Bavarian versions of X-Copy; how Cachet became a founding member of the VUD in Germany and ELSPA in the UK; the buggy fake called «X-Copy III» (which would have gotten a Danish guy in legal trouble if he had not admitted to it and Cachet Software accepted his apology and let him go); the full story why and how Richard Aplin joined the crew and Cyclone was integrated (with the help of a lot of German beer and a fast ride in a Porsche on the German Autobahn); how Simon Meldrum and Chris Allen from the UK came on board and finally how and why the decision was made to publish the source code of X-Copy Amiga many years later.
But let’s not forget: X-Copy‘s original authors were also famous for a game, Pinball Wizard. While its graphics were underwhelming, it had a certain appeal. But the major reason it was so well known among German users was Commodere‘s starter package PowerPack for the Amiga 500. It came with a couple of disks with games and tools, among them Pinball Wizard and a quiz game called Quiwi. And then there’s a running gag, which has never been addressed in public before: There is a tagline underneath the X-Copy logo in the graphics saying «Maraude it professional» and after today you might be able to guess why we put it and how cold that was served.
How did you get involved with X-Copy and Cachet?
I was 14 when I bought my own Amiga (coming from the Commodore 64 which was pre-owned by my dad) and I ended up dissecting the disks that came with it to get more insight into how things worked. Remember this were the late 80s, early 90s and we did, at best, have bulletin board systems (you‘d be charged for the phone connection by the minute) but not the internet. So access to information was limited. I had a few friends in the «scene», so step by step I made some progress figuring out how the Amiga would boot disks and what protections did.
The Action Replay II and later the III were just really awesome tools as they allowed you to break into everything by looking at memory and registers and understanding what the machine did. I am saying this knowing that Claus won’t be happy – because this piece of hardware was distributed by Datel, who’d try to piggyback on the success of X-Copy by putting out programs like Burst Nibbler. But the Action Replay for the Amiga was simply the best there was and, being developed by two German guys (Olaf Boehm and Jörg Zanger), just ended up at the wrong company – from my point of view. Unlike versions for other computers, this version worked perfectly and you could exit from the machine language monitor and the computer would pick up where it left off.
I liked games, but I was a fan of how they were presented in their original form. What I did not like were alterations to the game, for instance the «cracked by Quartex» message which could be littered all over the game. Don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t pointing fingers. I just wanted to be able to experience games unaltered, but at the same time the protection was a problem and creating backups was an annoyance.
A friend gifted me his original X-Copy, and I started playing around with X-Copy and Cyclone. At one point I started writing down and cataloging my findings in an Amiga Guide document. This was an early markup language similar to HTML, so I could make it interactive, with a table of contents and links cross-referencing things. It grew into a small database about protections, games and how to copy them.
I sent this in to Cachet a few times and at one point, I got invited to the Amiga Fair in Frankfurt. I was still underage and not allowed to drive, so my dad drove me to the venue. On site I was told that what I did was appreciated and that I’d now work for the company. I’d support customers and help implement new features based on customer feedback. To make this happen, Cachet had just released the X-Copy book and I was already named as the support representative, and my (mother‘s) phone number had been published as well.
If you find this sounds a little out of the ordinary and wild then you are absolutely right. I was just 16, nobody had asked for permission to publish my name, address or phone number. It just happened. I was given my first salary in cash, and my mum got a new phone number (paid for by the company). The address where I was born has been documented for eternity in this very book.
Looking back it still puzzles me how Claus pulled this off, but he had a certain pragmatic way of dealing with things. Today‘s world is different – the computer scene back then was still in its infancy and so were the methods. Claus always treated me well and send me around the world, including Cachet‘s headquarters – Anguilla Software International – on the Caribbean island of the same name. Cachet also had rented a house near the company HQ, where people would come, pick a room and start working on projects. I’d just hop on a train, go to southern Germany and make some money during school vacations for instance. On the weekends, we sometimes had Claus’s Porsche to drive around (me only riding shotgun or – worst case – back seat, but still fun) and go to the cinema for instance. So yes, it’s been a «ride» but it started my career. I would not be where I am today without Cachet.
Can you tell us a bit more about Cachet and their products?
Cachet mainly sold X-Copy & Tools back in the day (as a suite of tools), and a few other products. Among the latter were things like the Mark II Sound System (by Darius Zendeh) and later, for the PC, X-Tracker – both sound editors in the style of Soundtracker.
The X-Copy & Tools package included X-Copy Professional II and over the years varying additional programs. Cyclone (by Richard Aplin) was a hardware copier with a small dongle that would attach to the external drive and create working clones of many protections. CV Parameter Copier (by Thomas Lopatic & Rene Feibicke) was exactly this – a copier with parameters that would copy certain programs early versions of X-Copy could not replicate on its own.
X-Lent (originally written by Volker Roth, and later maintained by Holger Vocke) would copy files via two panes like Total Commander. QED (by Matthias Kegelmann) was a text editor which would sync its scrolling to the vertical blank, hence making browsing large documents a breeze. X-It (again by Holger) would allow users to encrypt (and decrypt) floppy disks via password and bit rotation. X-Press (by Hans Jürgen Kurrent) was a backup solution for HDDs.
All of the above was available for purchase from retailers. Buying directly from Cachet, people could also opt for a (in hindsight thirty years ahead of its time) subscription service – the «Service Package». For about 100 German Marks per year, Cachet would send out at least four software updates on disk, a manual and a t-shirt.
Besides X-Copy, Cachet would also sell select computer games like Battle Chess II. Stock was acquired in large quantities and then marketed via tele text on TV. In pre-internet times, this text based one-way service allowed for daily updates in contrast to pricey ads in magazines which had to be submitted months in advance. People would call in, place their order and that was that.
Cachet also served as the German distributor for some companies abroad, including id Software, which meant that we’d sell the full version of DOOM.
What are your thoughts on the fact that most X-Copy users probably used a pirated version?
This has been debated a gazillion times … work on software is not less work than laying bricks to build a wall or to baking bread from wheat. I don’t expect the baker or the mason to work for free. But some people still think they are exempt. It is what it is – and you can’t change such people.
Cachet tried to offer a «holistic» experience. Hence the service package, which for the price of 100.- DM (Deutsche Mark – roughly 50.- Euros, but not adjusted for inflation) gave subscribers four updates a year, delivered to their door step. It also included goodies like e.g. a new Cyclone hardware with logic and a t-shirt. Cachet even gave people the option to buy an upgrade and become legal customers; even though we knew they did not have an original version to upgrade from. But everyone was welcome, even if they only had a copy before.
It also made a difference that we went to all the trade shows, like in Cologne and Frankfurt. People could actually see who we were, and have a chat. But the real freeloaders are still active today. From time to time «clever» individuals get the idea to sell X-Copy on floppy disks or put out counterfeit mugs, shirts and stuff. We then have to remind them to not rip off other people.
We gave all versions of X-Copy to Jope to host them on the X-Copy Shrine. X-Copy is now «free» for private and personal use, but no money shall change hands. Oh, and just in case someone would be looking for t-shirts… warning… shameless plug coming up… we made a few anniversary shirts a few years ago and we still have a few around (on the KryoFlux webshop) in case someone would want one.
What actually happened to Cachet? It seems they were involved in a lot.
While Cachet had to shrink considerably after the days of the Amiga were over and some plans for games did not work out, Claus never really folded the company. Cachet still exists today and has produced e.g. casual puzzle games (e.g. Tendo). So technically Cachet is still active, but at a very reduced pace and with a different portfolio.
What about your current project, KryoFlux?
The Software Preservation Society, or short Softpres and SPS, was founded in 2001 by my business partner István «IFW» Fábián, also creator of the role-playing games Abandoned Places 1+2. He was equally «upset» over digital graffiti, so the idea was to archive software, predominantly games, unaltered and authentic. This required István to develop technology to create a container format for long term storage or floppy data including copy protection: the Interchangeable Preservation Format (IPF) was born.
I joined SPS as a regular contributor in about 2007. Some time later we saw the growing demand for preservation, and at the same time had to acknowledge that more and more Amigas were breaking due to age. It became apparent that we would not be able to utilise Amigas for preservation in the not too distant future, so we decided to create our own hardware. We had approached a manufacturer of a well known expansion board that would interface a floppy drive to a modern computer, but not pre-process and filter the data (like standard PC controllers do). He got mad at us coming with suggestions for a USB version because apparently he felt we weren‘t worthy of his genius.
This overlapped with someone showing up on English Amiga Board (EAB) – Cyclone‘s inventor, Richard Aplin. I reached out to Richard and pitched him the idea to do a modern Cyclone with today‘s (2008) technology. This culminated in a proof of concept – Cyclone20. Since Richard wasn‘t interested in pursuing this further, we took the concept and turned this into what would become KryoFlux. We did not plan to make this a commercial venture, but when the first batch of 100 boards sold overnight, we knew we weren’t the only ones in need of a solution like this.
While the software is a completely different beast, the hardware is still based on the very same ATMEL SoC from the mid 2000s. The reason is pretty simple: It does its job, so why change anything when the underlying technology – the floppy disk – hasn‘t changed in more that three decades. The software side looks very different and what we have had since the beginning – machine learning – has now exploded into AI-mania. But yes, there will also be astonishing benefits for floppy preservation stemming from this. Over the years, KryoFlux has become the de-facto standard at archives, libraries and museums all around the globe. It still feels surreal that a team of just a few can make a difference. It’s like X-Copy and history repeating…
As a bonus question, is Moonstone [which we’ve covered extensively before] still banned in Germany?
Back in the 1980s and 1990s the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Schriften (literal translation: Federal Agency for youth-endangering publications) was a State Agency that was initially set up to enforce youth protection for comics and books. In the 1970s, video tapes popped up and were regulated as well, and in the 1980s, computer games got scrutinised by the BPjS. The situation was especially bizarre for films where there already was an age rating system in place – the FSK, which is similar to the UK‘s BBFC or the US‘s MPAA. But Germany being Germany, one had to be extra sure that video nasties or 8-bit games would not turn kids into reckless killers. So the BPjS was able to ban media that was unrated or rated 18.
A ban would kill the product in the commercial marketplace, as any advertising, offering or even sale to minors would be penalised. Banning a film or game would place it in the same category as porn – with the very same restrictions for distribution. From today‘s perspective it is almost bizarre to think that anyone would object over 8-bit or later 16-bit graphics.
A ban is in place for 25 years, after which it will expire unless it is renewed. Hence the ban on many games from the 1980s and 1990s has expired. Moonstone was banned in 1992, and was automatically removed from the list in 2017. Still, if something is still banned, it is not exactly trivial to unban, especially since it is an administrative act and comes with a fee of about 2,500 Euros. To add to this, only the original rights holder can object and kick off the process. I have done so for a couple of films (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1+2, The Last House on the Left, Death Machine, etc.) in my daytime job these days. It gets especially challenging if a penal law confiscation makes something completely illegal to distribute, but this is a story for another day.
Thank you for your time, Christian!
Photos from Christian’s trip to Anguilla, shared with permission:
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