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Just because there's no one to press charges doesn't mean it's legal or OK, and the OP obviously wants stuff that's undeniably redistributable.

Obviously if the OP is uncomfortable with any of this advice, he'll not do it. But emulators are perfectly fine by themselves. He could just as easily load the emulators on the machines and let the end user figure it out. If you look online, it's actually quite difficult to find MAME ROMs, though a few free ones are available(the major ROM sites were taken down years ago). That may be 15 or so free ROMs, but it is a viable option.

http://mamedev.org/roms/
Free ROMS. Toss a few on the machines and the kids will be happy.

As for copyright, the interesting thing about it is that it's not like patents, which are jealously guarded and bought after a company dies. In the case of abandoned software by decades dead companies, there have been no major cases about this. At worst a few nastygrams have been sent out, but always to the projects/distribution sites(which stop making those files available) and not the end users. Those that were taken down but really popular almost always have sourceforge or similar groups that have made clones as well.

99.9% of the time the places in question that have such files take them down if there's a question.

http://www.the-underdogs.info/faq.php
This site is a good place for exact info and they keep their data current. (note - TONS aren't available or are blocked) Some games are shareware, some are abandoned, and some are still available, and usually dirt cheap at that.

It's pretty easy as well to find who owns the rights as well(sites like the above are full of info on each program's status), if you really care. Many of the original authors have explicitly given their okay to use it OR they have outright gifted it to the community/made it open source/etc. There are hundreds of pieces of old abandoned software out there like this. Use those titles and he's fine.

Or just go to Ebay and buy a few copies of the original floppies. I have a box of old programs like this in storage, and I get old stuff like this at garage sales just for this reason. The last I checked, a copy of Elite for PC was nearly free. The floppy need not even work - all you need is the physical disk.

Oh, but wait - the actual sequels are available online as shareware!
http://www.eliteclub.co.uk/download/

Mmm. http://www.the-underdogs.info/company.php?id=69&sort=year gives also Breakers, Brimstone and Captain Goodnight and the Islands of Fear

So ?

There are also the games that got popular past their prime. These are pretty rare, but Freespace 2 and The Longest Journey both immediately come to mind as being among the best ever in their respective genres, despite lackluster sales upon their release.

It's a shame that The Underdogs has gone semi-defunct. They were pretty good at picking out the forgotten gems.

Also, the games that got incrementally better with each sequal (eg. SimCity, Unreal Torunament, C&C) will likely be remembered pretty easily. These sort of games also have terrific "replay value." It takes a good while for SimCity to get old.

Of course, I'm not a hardcore gamer, so what do I know......

You should try to find or torrent Black Dahlia

Or its predecessor, "Ripper", starring Walken, David Patrick Kelly, Paul Giamatti, etc. I loved this game, and had to buy the disks (it was a 6 disc game) again from ebay since the disks were so scratched up.

Also, I should mention the Home of the Underdogs for anyone looking for some great classic games. It hasn't been updated in a while, but it has a ton of great games listed.

Gamer's Manifesto
Video Game 7 Commandments
The Scratchware Manifesto

All good reads, if you haven't checked them out... and all very valid complaints!

...for what it's worth, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has already been made into a good game. Some would even call it a great game.

(Although to be fair, it was a text adventure; a genre that's all but dead, and happens to be a lot more book-like than any other type of game.) //also thinks Metal Gear could be turned into a totally awesome movie, but lacks supporting evidence

Anyone remember this gem of a game? I played it for the C64 but the PC screenshots bear a pretty close resemblance.

The internet is a truly wonderful place.

http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?gameid=4642 The add-on packs are listed here under 'extras'. However, they only worked on the DOS/Windows versions of the game.

As a tabletop RPG - shadowrun was one of the games that I will always have a fondness in my heart for. The rules were cryptic, battles took forever, but that didn't seem to make a difference. The world was described so clearly with so many things that were logically futuristic it didn't seem like were you playing a fantasy sci-fi game - you were just role playing in the future.

Neither was I willing to purchase just to play a game that would probably ruin my memory of the weekends rolling dice.

what's that? i cant hear you over the sound of SimCity Classic, courtesy of the Underdogs.

http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?gameid=4642

Home of the Underdogs has quite a few games that are either freeware or are now free, like Freespace 2.

Liberated Games has many now free games that were once commerical offerings.

Rockstar has also made GTA2 and 2 other games free.

System Shock 2 is freely available as abandonware.

http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?gameid=3924

It was a hard one to find.

Seems a bit steep for such an old game, but it is quite difficult to come by. more info can be found here of course.

I have heard this mantra repeated a thousand times on Slashdot and I remain unconvinced.

Allow me to suggest an experiment:

Ask Joe to open Linspire's CNR Warehouse. Let him select the programs he thinks worth downloading - and paying for if that is required. Subtract the number that are available for Windows or OSX.

Then let him run riot on Amazon.com, IGN, Download.com, The Underdogs, etc. If Bioshock is too demanding for his PC, perhaps he'll find the Fallout Collection to his liking, at $15 plus S&H.

Don't slip past iTunes, and subscription services like Rhapsody, Live365 and Y! Unlimited.

When he is finished, put the lists side by side and see which excites him more.

Firefox 1.5.x.y and its poor caching system when using tabs was the last straw that got me to switch away from it. I don't know if it's been addressed in Firefox 2.0.x.y, but using up 700MB of RAM (which happened to me while browsing a multi-page image gallery (work-safe), although some of that memory was probably swapped out) is well over the line when other browsers manage to do it in less than 150MB.

I know you can limit it by setting browser.cache.memory.capacity in about:config, but there were some other things that were bothering me with Firefox at the time, so I gave Opera a spin and having been using it every since.

Try this or this.

This game was definitely released as freeware . In fact, not only is it freeware, the source code was also released. It can be distributed as you wish as long and it's not for commercial purposes. It has been ported to Mac and Linux as well

There might have been a time where they had a window to make it officially available, but I'm sure that there are plenty of ways to get it. Just be aware that it looks like the games and cutscenes have to be downloaded separately. Because is it a story-driven game, the cutscenes can make a difference. I recommend getting them. This is one time where you can download via BitTorrent and not worry about some Big Brother "Let's-Sue-Everyone" company coming after you. :)

The original silpheed was the best shooter ever: http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?gameid=982 I don't know how many times I read about that stupid mail program by mistake :-/. Frans

It's abandonware now: http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=4973

Try checking out Home of the Underdogs
If they don't have it, they have links to a lot of other "Abandonware" sites.
You are not alone, lots of us are looking for old games too!

I'm sure it is widely know, but I thought it would be worth mentioning that if one can acquire the original data files to the Zork games (or other Infocom games), frotz will play them on modern systems and is OSS.

Also, the DOS/Windows incarnations may be found at the Underdogs site.

cough, Cough, COUGH You don't happen to have a lozenge do you? Oh and you know what they say about slammed servers don't you? Wait till off peak time to access it.

cough, Cough, COUGH You don't happen to have a lozenge do you? Oh and you know what they say about slammed servers don't you? Wait till off peak time to access it.

cough, Cough, COUGH You don't happen to have a lozenge do you? Oh and you know what they say about slammed servers don't you? Wait till off peak time to access it.

SimCity 2k and 2kSE are currently available for OS9 as abandonware at the macintosh garden.

http://mac.the-underdogs.info/

Great if you have classic emulation installed or don't mind installing it.

Blackthorne is an excellent action/adventure hybrid in the same vein as Delphine's celebrated Out of This World. Probably the most underrated, overlooked game from Blizzard (made before the company became famous with WarCraft series), the game received little attention when it was released (perhaps due to the fanfare surrounding Warcraft 1, released around the same time). Which is a shame, because it is an excellent, addictive platformer that is arguably better than Flashback. The plot is mundane enough: you are the only hero who could stop evil Sarlac from conquering the kingdoms. Armed with a shotgun whose firepower can be increased, and a few bombs and guided missiles, you must break through the Orcish army and kill Sarlac inside his heavily fortified castle.

This game takes it the other way round. It takes a movie style interface and give the the impression you are "hacking" into corporate computers. Pretty entertaining (And it has a Linux Version yay)
Main Site:
http://www.introversion.co.uk/uplink/
Review at Home of the Underdogs:
http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=3044

That site requires you to pay. sorry about that.

http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=367

Dune 2 was primitive because it was the first "real-time strategy" game.

Nope. The first was The Ancient Art of War from way back in 1984. If there ever was a game that deserved a remake, this is it!

Heh, that reminds me of Star Crusader, an old, Wing Commander-esque game with a heavily branching plot (you could even become a traitor, fight for the other side and kill all your former friends), some recon missions with a stealth craft where you constantly had to watch your EM noise level (and indeed including scanning an enemy space station) and "unlock" new ships by either gathering ressources with your secondary units (you could send a second group of pilots on a separate mission that included ressource gathering or even a second chance at completing your mission) or just capturing one. It didn't even make a mission fail automatically if you leave in the middle (or had to use an escape pod because your ship exploded), there was always a good chance that your wingmen would complete it without you. There's a lot of stuff in this game that I haven't seen in any game after it.

After my initial gasping like a school girl. I thought I'd do some research on getting it installed on non 95/98 systems.

http://www.the-underdogs.info/tech/techelp_r.html# rocketjockey

This game was so fun single player, I could only imagine playing this multiplayer. The multiplayer is lan only. I wonder how well it works over the net. I used to have a kali account way back in the day for games like this. What could be used current day to play this over the net?

And with the info above, I'm really going to try and play it in wine again.

All I want is a cockpit-view starfighter type thing where I can attack huge capital ships in an online multiplayer setting. It doesn't even have to be a Massive one, just me and a few friends with headsets doing strafing runs. That would be great fun.

You want Freespace 2. It has capital ships, network play, and a mission editor. The source code is open and there is an effort to improve the game. You can get freespace 2 from HOTU.

I loved that game! But now it's nearly unavailable, and hard to get running at all. Is there any PC remake or independent spinoff of it out there?

You can download the DOS version at HotU, which runs just fine in Bochs or DosBox.

land the shuttle too! http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=1758

When Adams went to see them in 1988, there were 200 dolphins left, and energetic efforts were being made to save them. Sadly, as impressive as those efforts were, it still seems to have been too little, too late. But at least they tried...

Did you play Ultima Online at its 1998-2000 peak? That's the closest I've come to a CRPG that felt like something more than a computer game. If you were lucky enough to be on the same shard as a large group of dedicated roleplayers, the possibilities were almost endless. In the single-player realm, Darklands and Daggerfall both contain hints at something greater. Especially Darklands. If you've never played it, I absolutely recommend downloading it from HOTU. I could rave for paragraphs about its uniqueness, but just go and play it.

The Underdogs runs a pretty exhaustive list of indie games, here is their list of RPGs. Unfortunately, there are a hell of a lot of rogue clones (which is great if that's what you're into) but not so much graphically pleasing stuff.

Back around 1990, I wrote a game called Alpha Waves (Preview). Back then, the problem was not using integers to approximate floating point math, it was avoiding integer multiplications, because those were expensive compared to additions. For those of you with a curious mind, you can take a look at http://cc3d.free.fr/cube.s for the original source code.

So here is a quizz, the first one answering wins the admiration of the crowd:

- How did that engine avoid multiplications?

- How did it compute sine and cosines?

- What low-level hardware trick did it use in two-player mode, and how could that be used for performance tuning?

I believe Alpha Waves was the first video game on personal computers with full-screen "real" 3D (i.e. not scaled sprites), and I also believe it was the first 3D game with two simultaneous players sharing a screen. Would anybody have data to confirm or infirm that?

--
-- Physics for Dummies

So let's say I want to submit my game, which is already listed on Tucows, to this site.

How would it get indexed? I could not find a link to contribute software. After Home of the Underdogs grabbed it without so much as notifying me (but whatever; I'm flattered more than anything else), I would think this would be simple.

Click through the 'Hall of Belated Fame' pages at the Home of the Underdogs (a popular abandonware site) and you very quickly see how childish today's computer game marketing is compared with some of the more serious fare of the 80s and 90s. http://www.the-underdogs.info/featured.php

what's IF?

Defcon 5. Unplayable, even by 1987 standards.

Home of the Underdogs gets around the lost works problem interestingly. If there isn't anyone that owns the rights anymore, they can't complain if someone else is distributing it. So Underdogs just posts stuff it thinks is lost. If they're wrong the copyright holder sends their lawyers and the files get taken down and a link gets put to the rightful owner. If there really is no rights holder... well who's going to bring suit of copyright violation?

PS. Those games are in there for download right now. Go!

If you're looking for old games take a look at The Home of the Underdogs
They have just about all of the information on old games you could want, and are also useful when you have a dead disk. While 5.25" disks hold up ok, I have had more than one original disk die.
And while I'm pushing ideas DOSBox is invaluable for nostolgic gaming.

Similarly, I can describe a memory problem I had with Firefox 1.5.0.7.

Extensions present:
Adblock Plus
Adblock Filterset.G
DownThemAll
FlashBlock

I had three tabs open.
1. Was browsing /.
2. Was open to the PHP manual
3. Was browsing Home of the Underdogs's Hall of Belated Fame and was about 20 pages in to it.

Firefox's memory usage was at 721MB. To repeat that so you don't think it was a typo: 721MB.

So yes, I'm going to conclude that it has a memory leak.

Similarly, I can describe a memory problem I had with Firefox 1.5.0.7.

Extensions present:
Adblock Plus
Adblock Filterset.G
DownThemAll
FlashBlock

I had three tabs open.
1. Was browsing /.
2. Was open to the PHP manual
3. Was browsing Home of the Underdogs's Hall of Belated Fame and was about 20 pages in to it.

Firefox's memory usage was at 721MB. To repeat that so you don't think it was a typo: 721MB.

So yes, I'm going to conclude that it has a memory leak.

It's abandonware (sort of.) Anyhow, great improvements on the original: clicka and drag rail lines, online multiplayer, advanced light control etc.

Everybody is thinking about Dune, so here's what a stillsuit does. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stillsuit

By the way, download the full game with speech (legal abandonware) at http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?gameid=345

I always play as the Soviets. Partly because nuking the living crap out of America is enormous fun, but also because I've no idea of Russian geography and wouldn't know what to aim at. Is Skahaterakinskograd a major city? Fuck knows, but if I nuke Chicago I know I'm going to piss someone right off.