The Wayback Machine hosts plenty of old software downloads, some of which are legitimate, some of which are not. It all depends on what their crawler decides to download. Since they have so much content on the site, it's impossible for them to comb through all of it and pick out the illegitimate content. For all we know you could have been linked to an archived version of some "abandonware" site. 😜 Not that anyone really cares much, but I can see why a person wouldn't want to deal with old software of an illegitimate nature. Old abandonware games tend to be heavily modified to remove copy protection, cut down on the amount of content (especially for releases of CD games), etc. Unfortunately, these modifications tend to break other things as well.

He is not talking about the archived web pages, but the software archive - The Internet Archive Software Collection. I am not aware of anything illegal that they host. Nearly all that they have are demos or shareware. They do list the license of any given download.

collector wrote:

He is not talking about the archived web pages, but the software archive - The Internet Archive Software Collection. I am not aware of anything illegal that they host. Nearly all that they have are demos or shareware. They do list the license of any given download.

That _may_ be true of the PC collection but jscott's uploaded a full TOSEC collection as well as a full MAME ROMs set. That stuff's definitely illegal. While I do in some ways consider him a hero, personally I think jscott's been taking some extraordinary risks lately in the name of software archival - but maybe that's just me.

Not to mention the "Shareware CD archive" which just...... isn't.

archive.org has special DMCA exceptions and unfortunately it's being abused.

*cough cough* Classic Fond *cough cough*

Gemini000 wrote:

Someone sent me a link to a download of Visual Star Trek (a game I covered on ADG that never left beta) from archive.org

Oh! I'll have to check that out. I often wondered what the story was behind that one; it seemed so complete, yet so obscure.

SquallStrife wrote:

*cough cough* Classic Fond *cough cough*

TWiLiGHT, Crazybytes, Helpdisk.... they've sure got "shareware"

I remember when it was just PCGamer 5.10 being the only problem on the shareware archive. Hell one of those items even blatantly has the keyword "warez dvd"

The sad part is, when Archive.org had the TOSEC sets, Slashdot covered a story about it and no one seemed to raise a stink about intellectual property assuming it's all public domain.... SUPER MARIO BROS SURE AS HELL ISNT PUBLIC DOMAIN

leileilol wrote:

The sad part is, when Archive.org had the TOSEC sets, Slashdot covered a story about it and no one seemed to raise a stink about intellectual property assuming it's all public domain....

If they don't have them anymore, surely that means someone raised a stink?

Jorpho wrote:

leileilol wrote:

The sad part is, when Archive.org had the TOSEC sets, Slashdot covered a story about it and no one seemed to raise a stink about intellectual property assuming it's all public domain....

If they don't have them anymore, surely that means someone raised a stink?

Only Nintendo IIRC. So it's not a complete TOSEC mirror any more. Still, the collection of Sega Genesis games is complete, etc.

The temptation to remove this thread for linking to warez is pretty strong. But I am curious to see a little more discussion before it goes.

Stiletto wrote:

Only Nintendo IIRC. So it's not a complete TOSEC mirror any more.

Um, there is a "Super Entertainment System" collection still there...

Ahhh, that clever shifty bugger. Surely TOSEC has a NES collection though, where's that?

I've always found it funny how Nintendo acts like they have this hardline stance on emulation, yada yada, but in reality they never seem to bother suing any of the major rom sites or anything. It's so easy to download roms of their games that literally a child could do it. Doesn't mean it's "right", but you know, that's just how it is.

As far as the whole software preservation vs. intellectual property rights debate goes, I'm definitely in favor of software preservation. I mean, I like supporting my favorite developers as much as the next guy, but sometimes it can be a pain in the ass to obtain and play X obscure, out-of-print game without resorting to *ahem* illegitimate methods. 🤣

I love GoG.com just because they provide a legitimate option for playing many of these obscure old games that have been trapped in legal limbo. I sincerely hope they can someday expand beyond PC games and start offering console titles as well.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I've always found it funny how Nintendo acts like they have this hardline stance on emulation, yada yada

Not to mention they happily use technology from something they detest so much (like the iNES format).

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I've always found it funny how Nintendo acts like they have this hardline stance on emulation, yada yada, but in reality they never seem to bother suing any of the major rom sites or anything.

You weren't around for the ROM site takedowns back in the day. They caused real fear of them that's ingrained to this day.

... and when there was no such thing as the DMCA, they simply sent legal Cease & Desists. Entire sites closed.

I was introduced to emulation some time around 2002, while at my babysitter's house (what? I was like 8 or 9 at the time 🤣). I thought the idea of being able to play SNES games on a PC was rather neat. 😁

1996. Pasofami, in its Japanese, MIDI-device-for-sound glory.

So there!

VGB demo for DOS, circa 1995/1996 as well... that thing was THE thing back then... ran like crap at my system 🤣
then came Bloodlust and we got a taste of the future IMHO

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I was introduced to emulation some time around 2002, while at my babysitter's house (what? I was like 8 or 9 at the time 🤣). I thought the idea of being able to play SNES games on a PC was rather neat. 😁

It was even more amazing in 1996/7 on a 486. ZSNES ftw.

How hackish/inaccurate are the old versions of ZSNES? I'd love to see how one of the old versions runs on period hardware. The first version I used was 1.36, and for the most part it ran pretty well on a Pentium II box with some minor sound/graphics inaccuracies (which I never really noticed until much later when I started collecting actual SNES games). Of course, different games had different requirements, and Ive noticed that while most games can run well on that version of the emulator even with a lowly Pentium 166, others (particularly Super Turrican and Sparkster) need a Pentium III.