The Internet Archive has expanded its offerings to include more than 2,500 MD DOS games — making it the largest update to the digital library since 2015.
Thousands Of MS-DOS Games Now Available Online
On Sunday, Oct. 13, the nonprofit announced the addition of classic titles from the '90s such as 3D Bomber, Alien Rampage, Alone in the Dark, and Zool.
The new update is part of the game preservation and restoration project called eXoDOS. So far, the eXoDOS collection has acquired and preserved more than 7,000 titles, ranging from simple games developed during the early years of IBM PC up to more recent independent productions from people that still work on MS-DOS.
"DOS has remained consistent in some ways over the last (nearly) 40 years, but a lot has changed under the hood and programs were sometimes only written to work on very specific hardware and a very specific setup," wrote Jason Scott, a software curator at the Internet Archive. "They were released, sold some amount of copies, and then disappeared off the shelves, if not everyone's memories."
All titles available on the digital library are playable, but the usual caveats apply: the emulations might not always run smoothly, and not all games include a manual.
One of the titles included in the update is Mr. Blobby, a DOS Platform game from 1994 based on a popular character from the BBC TV shows Noel's House Party. To play, the character has to walk around to reveal the true colors of the background.
Another game mentioned is Digger, an arcade game from 1983. According to Scott, the Dig Dug clone came out right as the IBM PC was just starting to take off.
In Digger, the player has to steer a mining machine while evading enemies and collecting diamonds.
Preserving The Past
The Internet Archive offers more than just MS-DOS games for historians, technologists, researchers, and the general public to explore. The nonprofit digital library is also working on preserving copies of books, videos, images, audios, web pages, software programs, and even Google+ posts.
The Internet Archives have been regularly updating its collection of retro games. Last year, the site added 200 LCD and LED games from the '80s and the '90s like Karnov and Battletoads.
