MS-DOS Computer Games online

Im New Yorker vom 11.1.2015 ist unter dem Titel «Video Games and the Curse of Retro» ein Artikel zu lesen über die knapp 2’500 historischen MS-DOS Computer Games, die seit kurzem kostenlos im Internet Archive verfügbar sind:

«Since there is no Criterion Collection of video games, no Penguin Classics, the work of preservation has fallen mostly to amateurs and academics. In 1998, for example, Stanford University acquired the Stephen M. Cabrinety Collection in the History of Microcomputing, which includes almost forty years’ worth of titles for various video-game consoles. In 2008, Britain’s National Media Museum, in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, established the National Videogame Archive, which aims to “preserve, analyse and display the products of the global videogame industry by placing games in their historical, social, political and cultural contexts.” But these collections are inaccessible to most players. The Internet Archive, by contrast, makes games readily available—and, crucially, playable—online. (The MS-DOS games run on an emulator designed by the software curator Jason Scott, which allows a Web browser to mimic the original operating system.)»