As secondary school kids here in London, it was something every Amiga kid had. When first introduced to it, you felt you were being introduced to the Dark Side of the Amiga Force. But, to put it bluntly, this is what was used by kids in the early 90s to swap and copy pirate games with one another.
I remember trying to make backups of original Amiga games, but always got the ‘read fail’ marks when attempting to do so.
This is why I want to share an article from Spillhistorie where they go into great detail about all things X-Copy, beginning with its origin, followed by so many revealing facts. Who knew there was so much to it.
Here are just a few details from the article, which I recommend that everyone should read:
The Most Popular Program You Never Paid For: While X-Copy was a commercial product sold by the German company Cachet Software, it was arguably the most pirated, yet most-used, program on the Amiga, becoming the essential tool for backing up (and copying) games.
The Secret to Superiority: Unlike competitors that “cracked” software by modifying the disk’s protection, X-Copy was designed to preserve the original protection in a working copy, setting a new standard for backup speed and fidelity.
A Failed Beginning: The program’s original authors, Frank Neuhaus and Hans Georg Berg, initially released a predecessor called White Lightning, but its first publisher failed to recognize its massive market potential, leading to low sales.
Cachet’s Marketing Genius: Claus Peter Lippert, CEO of Cachet, took over distribution, ensuring the program received the marketing it deserved. He championed the concept of “usability” to make the tool instantly accessible to users.
The Unexpected Career Path: The interview features Christian Bartsch, a Cachet veteran who now works with the disk preservation system KryoFlux. He reveals how, as an underage fan, his obsession with documenting copy protections led to an abrupt job offer and a published phone number in an official X-Copy book.
A Utility Ecosystem: X-Copy evolved beyond a simple copier into a “suite of tools” that included software like Cyclone and various utilities, and briefly gave its publisher Cachet Software the world market lead for Amiga utilities in 1994.
From Piracy to Preservation: The same spirit of technological mastery that built X-Copy later inspired the creation of the KryoFlux system, a modern device now used by archives and museums worldwide to digitize and preserve old floppy disks.
You can read the very detailed original full article here.