The Internet Archive is offering a massive collection of classic arcade titles for free. As part of its effort to archive the history of computers and software, the group is now hosting over 900 previously coin-operated classics and allowing anyone to play them for free in the browser with no installation required…
There is a wide selection of 70’s, 80’s and 90’s era arcade titles ranging from early “bronze-age” titles in black and white to more full scale experiences with full color and music. It is important to keep in mind this is an ongoing project mainly handled by James Scott and the JSMESS emulator team so there are some bugs present and certain titles are yet to be fully programmed and playable. Also, playing some of these games on a keyboard doesn’t quite work as well as the original set-up, as Internet Archive points out.
Firefox is the suggested browser here, but other browsers should work fine, according to the release notes. You wont find any instruction manuals on how to work these old games , so you’ll have to fend for yourself a little bit here. Outside of basic arrow and ALT in-game controls for most cases, press the “5” key to drop a virtual coin in when the game boots up and then press “1” to choose a single player game.
On top of the 900 classic coin-op titles available, you’ll also find a section of newer console emulations like the early Mortal Kombat games and many more, courtesy of Internet Archive’s previous home console efforts.
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