Or am I not supposed to?

In general, you download them from the same place where you buy them. Or - if they free - whereever you can get them.

(yes - THIS is NOT the place to ask for illegal, pirated copies of games).

Good places to start:

http://www.theesa.com/
http://www.idsa.com

Then what is dos box for?

DOSbox is for those of us who played these games "back in the day". We still own copies of the games and want to play them on our new hardware. DOSbox is NOT for people who just want to pirate and get as many free games as they can.

And - if we don't own them - we go to shops that sells 2nd hand games - like http://www.gameshop.se. Old games are just around $10.

Your local trader will sell you older collections like the "Softgold Game Box 1 : 50 Games" for only a few € or $.

You may buy even cheaper from friends who want to get rid of their old hardware and don't care about the games too.

I stick with ebay for the games I need to rebuy. I was surprised how many games I lost over the years due to bad floppies / losing them when moving etc. I should have been more careful with them. On the bright side, it is fun to recollect some titles and play them again.

And I'd like to add really quick that being a very picky shopper, to not rush into a so called 'deal'. Sometimes if you just wait even a day, you find what you paid for a game (thinking you really got a great deal) you ended up paying an extra 6 bucks or more that you could have kept to buy other stuff. (Has happened I don't know how many times when I'm in a hurry). So do take your time. Also, if you want, try using these three sites (its where I get most of my good price comparisons from) and hopefully that will help you with finding games to play 😀

www.pricegrabber.com
www.overstock.com
www.half.com (now given, Half is partly Ebay, but it gives you the better deals, and if they have none available, they already do a search for you on ebay, so you're not wasting any time at all!)

Hope this helps you find future deals and games to play 😀

Not to step on any toes, but I have been looking for several old games for some time now and have checked most of the links given here and turned up nothing. The games are Darkseed 1 (on CD), Sam and Max for PC WITH voice soundfiles (yes, checked Lucas site and no luck).

I don't want to resort to piracy, so anyone who can give me a valid link in English where these can be found will be in my debt.

Thanks.

I'm very surprised that you can't find Sam & Max, though I suppose that it is rather a popular game. I thought that LucasArts still sold their classic games through their Web site, though...

I`d suggest checking out abandonware sites. I wont post any links but googling isn`t THAT HARD.

In the cases of where the companies no longer exist is about the only way you can get some particular games.

Some older games are also freely available from the developers website. Grand Theft Auto 1 & 2 were recently put up for free on the Rockstar website for example.

Snover wrote:

I thought that LucasArts still sold their classic games through their Web site, though...

They do indeed. http://www.lucasarts.com/companystore/adventure/

Snover where did you get that avy? I would love it. Eat that spy ware.