Forums > Game Forums > Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist > Playing really old games
Shelly Dowdle on 9/5/2014 5:21 PM · Permalink · Report
I'm new here and pretty clueless about how to do anything with my computer (other than email, web pages, that sort of thing).
I wondered if there is a way to find really old games (80's or early 90's) that you can download and play on a modern computer? Even if I need to buy them (assuming I can play them on my computer at all and don't have to pay a lot!).
I have a bunch of floppies in the garage from the late 80's and early 90's, but of course I have nothing to play them on (assuming they still work). I also have old CD's that we used with DOS and Windows 3.1.
I have a fairly old computer right now (it's probably 8+ years old), so I'm not sure if there is anyway to actually find and play old games on it, but I was hoping someone might have some info for me.
There are so many games that I just LOVED and my older son enjoyed.
I also remember playing that game on our Vic 20. It was a cassette tape and was a text adventure. I didn't see it on the list of Vic 20 games. I wanted to suggest it, but I don't have any information other than the name of the game and a vague memory of what it was about.
I hope I made some sense here!
Victor Vance (18098) on 9/5/2014 7:52 PM · Permalink · Report
Here is a site I can really recommend: Download Old Games It features thousands of games mostly for PC and some Amiga Games, the oldest going back to tha late 1970ies. Some games have an option called "Easy Setup". Try to install these as the games start automatically as there is an option for this in the games folder and you don´t need to use DosBox (it includes the DosBox starting process). Hope that is of help! Oh and welcome to MobyGames.
Cavalary (11445) on 9/5/2014 8:22 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
Well, a few particularly old games have been released more or less officially for free, sometimes fixed so they'll work on modern systems too (like Blizzard did with a few recently), though usually they're "as is" and you'll need to get them running yourself. Same goes for abandonware titles, which can be found on such sites. Those aren't exactly legal, but as long as nobody's selling them, nobody can claim losses either.
But, of course, if the problem is getting them to run easily, most of those may not be what you're looking for and VictorVance's suggestion may work better for you. (Never heard of that site before, so just saying this if it does what he said, not that I know it for a fact as well.)
Otherwise, there's of course GOG if shops also work, plenty of older titles in their catalog, the DOS ones bundled with a properly configured DOSBox so you usually just install and play.
(Meh, at the moment I'm getting pissed at them again, with all the regional pricing flood.)
The thing is that, when it comes to DOS games, DOSBox usually does the trick, though it needs to be properly configured first. It's Windows games from the '90s that usually won't work anymore and are far harder to fix, and in some cases impossible.
PS: Speaking of officially free old titles, ended up on Apogee's site these days and saw their list of downloads, including a bunch of full free games and parts of others as per the old shareware model. No support or fixes for those though, they just suggest DOSBox.
Pseudo_Intellectual (66361) on 9/5/2014 11:34 PM · Permalink · Report
If you like the old text games many of the most common and popular can be made to work with a swiss army knife interpreter such as Gargoyle - http://ccxvii.net/gargoyle/ - without needing to set up a DOSBox environment. Text games are sufficiently light on the processor that even on an ancient computer you should be able to run them with little difficulty.