by Andrew Loof
What happens to vintage video games when the copyrights never get extended, the rights going to no one? They become abandonware. One might think it’s hard to come across such things, but fortunately there are resources on the web that cater to finding such software! Two of these I will highlight today: My Abandonware and Home of the Underdogs.
My Abandonware and Home of the Underdogs (HOTU) are two similar websites with similar goals: archiving older game software that runs mostly on the DOS platform. For those newer to the computer scene, DOS was the interface that was used prior to Windows. It featured no Graphical User Interface (GUI), so navigating was done purely from typing. It had the same folder hierarchy and similar functionality to Windows, it just took a little imagination to work with. The games from back then were still incredibly fun, and a lot of niche games simply fell through the cracks. Smaller publishers may not have been able to keep the copyrights or they just flat out disappeared over time. So, they are now available online for free, one simply has to look. This is where HOTU comes in. HOTU acts as a database for abandonware. It offers a host of search options as well as browsing options.
When one finds a game they want, it provides many pieces of information about the game. If available it will also show a screenshot and the box art of the game as well. It will also provide a link to search for the game. Clicking the link will automatically search google for a download version of the game. This aspect is what makes HOTU so versatile. It provides a deep level of searching for thousands of games, with a host of data points to begin looking! Now, while HOTU does not provide download links, that’s where My Abandonware comes into play.
Before we go any further, I should tell you a bit about running DOS games. This explanation will serve to give one a greater appreciation for My Abandonware as a site. DOS games one finds online are not going to run immediately. Rather, they must be emulated using DOSBox. What this does is create a DOS environment that will be able to handle running these games. There’s a lot of configuring that can be done, but this requires familiarity with using the DOS interface. Unfortunately, it’s not a terribly user friendly interface in this day and age. In order to run games you have to navigate to the file folder using specified DOS commands. Then, depending on the age of the game, one can either run the game, or they will have to mount a CD file to a drive. Then one can install the game to the hard drive and run it from there. This list of errands to get a game running is essentially tedious and not exactly intuitive. However, My Abandonware changes all of that.
My Abandonware is a site that hosts the files of abandoned games. There are many sites out there such as abandonia, however, I have found this one to be the best. The reason is this: My Abandonware gives users an option to play directly in their browser! There is absolutely no need to download the files, download and configure DOSBox, and run the games on your computer. It also features a host of options that allow for ease of access, such as turning the game fullscreen at the press of a button.
The major caveat is your browser, connection, and PC. In some cases the performance may not be up to par. Older PCs and slow internet speeds may hinder the game’s capabilities. In this case one must go through DOSBox to get the best performance. However, by and large these games should be able to play well enough in browser that it should not be necessary to download them. If one does want to mess around with an antiquated computing environment I wholeheartedly recommend trying out DOSBox and running games with it. Getting the game to run is often times as satisfying as playing the game itself.
Getting a taste of nostalgia or seeing where games were 30 years ago is a blast. Plus, one might have fun along the way! That is why I wished to bring these two invaluable resources of digital preservation to greater attention, and I hope they will be of some use!