This week on THE FOX SPEAKS should be groundbreaking to say the least, an interview/article on a guy who has working with emulation for the past seven years and is now winding down to fulfilling his real life comittments, who is this person im sure you are thinking? your gutt feeling is probably correct, today see's Stephen Richards aka The Fox standing down from his perch at the top of emuunlim.com. I have the wierd and strange opportunity to interview someone who I yet haven't done yet. Myself!

Why are you leaving emuunlim.com?

Well in a nutshell, I cannot honestly put my hand on my heart and say that I can give the time and commitment that our emuunlim.com visitors have had over the past seven years, with real life events catching up, I need to take a stand and get on with my life, without worrying that im leaving a lot of our staff/visitors at the back end of my commitments.

Over the years, I have sometimes put emuunlim.com ahead of spending time with my ex girlfriends, spending more quality time with my family and generally letting time pass me by. Put bluntly I cannot promise that now, I cant be here for emuunlim.com at all times, unlike before. It would be putting the websites future at risk, which I wont allow, hence the decision.

When does emuunlim.com close?

Well, im putting in place a takeover (more or less) which will secure emuunlim.com's future, nothing will change (structurely) for the time being and I would like to wish that our staff with stick with us and continue such excellent work on our homepage(s), same goes with all of our hosted websites. I would hate to see a mass revolt, due to me leaving, my wish is for emuunlim.com to carry on going from strength to strength.

Im in the process of moving home with my girlfriend Emma (x), so I will be back (once the cable internet is installed), but in a smaller role, which I prefer at this moment in my life. I would like to think that by doing this, is a great move to stablise the future of emuunlim.com by giving it to someone who can give their time and effort into continuing our success.

When do you leave emuunlim.com?

Sunday 11th January 2004 see's my stand-down from the post at emuunlim.com, and by then the replacement will be revealed to emuunlim.com's homepage. After this time I need to concentrate my time and efforts to moving home and other personal committments.

The only thing I will say at this moment in time, is that emuunlim.com will be ran correctly and that the replacement wants all the staff and visitors to continue the great job (as do I). I will continue to be at emuunlim.com during the 'takeover' making sure that things go smoothly as planned. I would personally like to apologize to our staff guys at emuunlim.com to drop this bombshell, but it was something I had to do on the spot.

As far as I see it, nothing will change, so PLEASE continue to stick with emuunlim.com, make sure that I will be visiting daily (from my workplace) for the latest and best emulation news :)

Have you informed ZTNET (Emulation World) on your decision?

I have spoken to Zachary Williams (Lev) explaining my situation and he (as always) understands it completely and has promised to continue hosting emuunlim.com and wished me the best for the future, he has been a true friend over the past seven years and one of the pillars that have made emuunlim.com such a popular and successful website.

I would personally like to thank ALL our newsposters, especially Mike Haggar and Zolex, who have updated emuunlim.com on such a daily basis, without these guys emuunlim.com would have been one of those "updated every few days" websites, due to me not having enough time (and sometimes desire) to do updates.

Over the years I have made a ton of good friends (some I have had the chance to meet in person) and its been a honour to be involved in such an exciting pastime such as EMULATION.

What have been your favourite times at emuunlim.com?

Well one of the most exciting (and scary heh) times at emuunlim.com was Friday January 29th 1999, the day ULTRAHLE was released at emuunlim.com. It was such a thrill, to host such an exciting project, which I was the third person to try (after REALITYMAN and EPSILON), I knew the moment Mario came on with full speed and sound I had something which would change emuunlim.com forever, it was such an rush to hype it up, as I had something incredible which would live up to its name. To note #4 & #5 testers were Atila and JoseQ and to give one guy credit to bring it to our attentions was one of our previous newsposters 64_Bit (see I do give credit where its due) :)

Another time which was memorable, but for the wrong reasons at a time EMUUNLIM.COM and EMUVIEWS.COM (JOSEQ) were at the top of its game, just after ULTRAHLE was released. I was one of the first people to try the infamous Playstation emulator bleem! (eeeek!) and was hyping it up on emuunlim.com, knowing that it was real and did work (kinda). JoseQ bomb-barded me publicly saying that bleem! was fake and that I was doing wrong by hyping it up (at this moment in time, he was probably right after all, it didnt perform the way Randy hoped it would have turned out). bleem! was confirmed as real and I kinda had one up on JoseQ for a long time. After all that was said and done, me and JoseQ became quite good buddys and laughed about it at times. Another good friend during my time at emuunlim.com.

Hitting the 10 million mark was such an incredible feat for a US hosted, UK ran website. Emuunlim.com can forever be classed as the #1 UK emulation website, and one of the greats worldwide, we did it all without the aid of offering illegal arcade rom downloads (which Daves Classics did, look how that ended up, big hits, gone to the shits), we done it by delivering pure news, interviews and exclusives.

A good moment was being interviewed by PC ZONE magazine and having a photo shoot for our 4 page interview, I remember it like it was yesterday, they wanted to use a smoke bomb as a background for the photo's in my home, five minutes later all the fire alarms went off and neighbours etc though the house was on fire, priceless.

What were your bad times at emuunlim.com?

One of the worst times at emuunlim.com was when I lost all of my newsposters/staff in one mass revolt due to them setting up emugaming.com, but it ended being the best thing that ever happened to emuunlim.com as it developed superbly and got as popular by tenfold. My desire to see it through pushed me more to be successful. (endnote: emugaming.com has been closed for a few years now) Not many other bad times, worthy to mention, the only other bad time was typing this, my swansong.

What was your favourtie EVER emulator released?

One of my favourite emulators previously was the SYSTEM 16 emulator by Thierry Lescot, a great guy who was a pleasure to interview. Seeing my favourite games such as Shinobi, Space Harrier, Outrun (all which worked with sound samples back then) was such an exciting time for me. The first System 16 release was one of the first emulators I ever tried, when my internet useage was to visit the nearly cybercafe with a few floppy disks :)

Amstrad CPC emulation (I was a previous Amstrad CPC owner) was another favourite which I used to download from the cybercafe seven years ago, I even contacted one of the authors by post, who duely replied with a new version which wasnt released on the internet, after this gesture I was hooked and wanted to get involved in the world of emulation by any means possible.

M.A.M.E also was an amazing journey, seeing it being developed over the years has been such a rush, as who would have thought seven years ago that a simple 4mb download would allow you to play over 4,000 arcade games, simply incredible. Kudos to everyone involved! Seeing the FIRST ever Nintendo 64 (UltraHLE), Atari Jaguar (Project Tempest), Sega 32x/CD (AGES) emulators were ALL exciting times as they all debuted at emuunlim.com and allowed us to put our footmark in the history of our great hobby.

What do you think of Next Generation Emulators?

Well after feeling the aftershocks after ULTRAHLE was released, I feel that if released early into the public circle, next generation emulation will be the slow but sure death of emulation and will drag it underground with rom images (see Xbox emulation, as a waypoint - news with no downloads available).

I dont expect this, many websites support next generation emulators, but appear to be a shower of pictures to whet peoples appetites, but may not surface (unless they dont work authentically) in general. Getting involved with SONY/NINTENDO/SEGA etc in a court battle is a scary thought.

Word Association Time!

• Atila Mert (Retrogames) - A great guy, who has like myself better things to do than to post news updates (he's done a lot more than in the past which makes up for it, he deserves as much time as he needs). Brought many exciting projects to retrogames such as MAME, CPS2SHOCK and many other websites, as well as bringing quick and informative news without the razzamatazz that many websites do.

• Dave (Daves Classics aka Vintage Gaming Network) - Hmmmmm, not had really much communication with Dave over the years, but when I have spoken to him briefly, he seems such a not-so-happy chappy, more like one of the kids that enters our channel acting the dick (not much think, more gob - me saying that intensifies the point). Brought many people to the world of emulation, by offering rom downloads, which many sites didnt have the balls to do, but it ended sour legally. Doesnt cut the mustard by the amount of hits that it did/does recieve. In my opinion. (Please check out his website to see if he proves my point, by getting the last word hehe)

• Realityman (co-ULTRAHLE author) - Gordon Hollingsworth (previously True Reality author) is a nice bloke, who i've met in person. Not spoke to him lately due to him moving to Canada, but by meeting Gordon, he introduced me to his then-wife Carla (who has since married ZTNET'S very own Zachary Williams) who is such a sweet person and is very happy living in the US at the moment. I would like to thank Gordon for giving me the opportunity to host such a hot potato as ULTRAHLE and letting me run with it :)

• Peter Dalton (EmuHQ) - A great guy, who over the past twelve months, hasn't had the best of luck with newsposters, or having the time to update his website (also due to H/D problems). Since then he is hosting EmuHQ himself and hopefully this will be the end of their hiatus and EmuHQ will now go from strength-to-strength. EmuHQ was started shortly after ULTRAHLE was released, so its nice to see something good come from the controversy. Good Luck Peter!

• Swampgas (Zophars Domain) - A mixed bag (not a gasbag), personally he seems a nice bloke who I have spoken with a good few times on MIRC over the years. The only questionable thing was the way he kinda treated his staff, it gave the feeling that if you dont post, you get fired (for a voluntry job was a bit silly). In my opinion in order to run a successful and updated website, you have to treat your newsposters well, if you tell them what to do, they simply dont do it, as it would seem to be a chore. They have to enjoy their experience and be treated well, after all they are giving their time and effort into helping you. Again, my opinion.

• Lev (Zachary Williams - ZTNET) - A great guy (gotta say something nice hehe!) who has over the years been one of my best friends on the net, has given emuunlim.com a lot of leverage (no pun intended) and expansion options to develop emuunlim.com into the premier emulation website that you see today. Together we started Emulation World bring many exciting emulator projects and hopefully securing his future. He has put a lot of time and effort (and money) into securing the hosting life of many emulator websites on the net, for free. If you wish to get your website hosted by a guy who actually gives a damn about emulation then contact him. Remember advertisements and popups (annoying as they are) only help to fund the websites usage, as emulation isnt a cash generated business, something has to pay for the darn thing. Please support him.

If you would like people to remember you for a reason(s), what would it/they be?

I would like to be remembered as someone who gave a damn about emulation and someone who was a nice person to his staff (if anyone disagrees please email me) and visitors. Also someone who didnt pressure his staff into posting and realised that real life comes first etc. I would like to see myself as someone who enjoyed every experience at emuunlim.com and left the right way, with no grudges with the right people. I feel emuunlim.com gave something different that other websites simply emulated (ie. look similar, do the same thing etc etc). Dont emulate, inovate...i feel that was emuunlim.com in a nutshell.

On closing

Remember, im not leaving emuunlim.com completely, but just standing down from my head post, I will keep everyone informed on how im doing etc. and try and dedicate some time to update the site and bring exclusives to emuunlim.com when I have time. There's still some life in the old dog yet. Thank you everyone for reading this crap over the years, it really has been a pleasure, giving my time and effort into my baby, which has grown into such a flourishing website, its time for the dad to be put in retirement. I will take this GREAT experience to the grave and it breaks my heart (tear in eye) to let it go, but we cannot stay young and commitment free forever. Its simply time to move on....but i'll be back (arnie voice)...count on that!

Ciao!

Stephen Richards (The Fox) webmaster of Emuunlim.com

Sept 5th 1997 - Jan 10th 2004.

I would personally like to thank the following people for their work/assistance at emuunlim.com, I would like to wish them the best for the future.

• Mike Haggar, Zolex and the newsposting team : Im indebted to your workrate and pray that you continue for years to come. (fingers crossed)
• Malc Jennings : A great guy, who always had time for a good chat. Another brick in emuunlim.com solid house.
• L_Face: When the mass revolt at emuunlim.com came a while back, he stayed and showed great loyalty to emuunlim.com, even though he did nothing :)
• Sixtoe: A great guy, nice to see him becoming such a force to be reckoned with at retrogames.com.
• Kyle O'Brien: The ladies man of emuunlim.com, always a great chat letting me know with his ladies problems (as usual).
• Fygee: Our forum head honcho, I promise that the forum will get much better tenfold, thank you for your patience.
• ALL HOSTED PROJECT WEBSITES WEBMASTERS: Thank you for sticking with emuunlim.com for all this time, your websites have a safe home at emuunlim.com for many years to come.
• Apprentice, Atila, JoseQ, DrSteveW, FRK, Martin64, Manbeast, Bish, Bomb, Zing, Marrez, Kim Visnes, Zophar, Whitsnake, Bobbi & Thorgal (ngemu.com)
• .....and everyone else involved with emuunlim.com that i've forgot to mention (sorry!)