MS-DOS Game Preservation

[Seiya]

This thread is becoming: PC vs Amiga
Stay in topic and speak about preservation about dos games. DOS or Amiga is always retro gaming, so we have to be happy to have the chance to play with one or the other

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by zodiac

Really? I have to run them all from a MS-DOS prompt on my 486 DOS 6.22 machine. It says it’s MS-DOS and the boxes list MS-DOS as a requirement. Hmmm... so what am I running?

So if you start a game from the Kickstart prompt, it's a "Kickstart game"?

I bet your game boxes say "IBM PC or compatible".

[Thalion]

Isn't it that all games that are not exlusively run from windows are reffered to as MS-DOS games? So that should be nearly all games in the 90s.

[Amiga4000]

Originally Posted by Thalion

Isn't it that all games that are not exlusively run from windows are reffered to as MS-DOS games? So that should be nearly all games in the 90s.

That would be correct Sir.

[lesta_smsc]

As far as I'm aware, there hasn't been a true collection as you hope in terms of disk images being stored. I think possibly for the reason that cracked software was easier to distribute or because of disk protection, although the latter could have been solved using something like SNATCHIT with COPYIIPC to make images of the disks.

There are individuals who made such collections available e.g.
https://archive.org/search.php?query...%22Flyers80%22

[Supamax]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

As far as I'm aware, there hasn't been a true collection as you hope in terms of disk images being stored. I think possibly for the reason that cracked software was easier to distribute or because of disk protection, although the latter could have been solved using something like SNATCHIT with COPYIIPC to make images of the disks.

There are individuals who made such collections available e.g.
https://archive.org/search.php?query...%22Flyers80%22

Wow, very nice collection! Dumps including the original error protections!

Regarding the Total DOS Collection, I didn't understand if the programs in its archives are clean/cracked or if they are images (including copy protections) of the original floppies...

Originally Posted by Thalion

Isn't it that all games that are not exlusively run from windows are reffered to as MS-DOS games? So that should be nearly all games in the 90s.

Correct.

[Seiya]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

There are individuals who made such collections available e.g.
https://archive.org/search.php?query...%22Flyers80%22

nice collections. i can use for my other collections that i stopped because i didn't find new floppy images. Great!!
But, it necessary codes protection

[Mrz]

Originally Posted by Seiya

!
But, it necessary codes protection

yep

I downloaded desert strike,zool,zool2, micromachines 2,krusty fun house,arcade pool ,jurassic park etc

all of them ask for protection code
where I can download the manuals for these games to bypass the codes?

[rygar]

Originally Posted by Mrz

yep

I downloaded desert strike,zool,zool2, micromachines 2,krusty fun house,arcade pool ,jurassic park etc

all of them ask for protection code
where I can download the manuals for these games to bypass the codes?

Try some software mentioned here
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=45421

[Seiya]

some PC games that has also Amiga version it just to download manual from Abime.net. Manual for Amiga and PC are the same.
Of course if you have a only PC games you have to find specific manual

[lilalurl]

http://www.replacementdocs.com/ has some manuals/protection sheets for PC games.

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by Mrz

yep

I downloaded desert strike,zool,zool2, micromachines 2,krusty fun house,arcade pool ,jurassic park etc

all of them ask for protection code
where I can download the manuals for these games to bypass the codes?

Try this:

https://archive.org/details/gamemanuals

[aeberbach]

You guys!

XCOM was a fantastic game - and it ran better than it did on the Amiga! So was TIE Fighter, X-Wing, so many others. Don't be blinded by your platform of choice. I'm not sure System Shock even got an Amiga release...

[Mrz]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

Try this:

https://archive.org/details/gamemanuals

thanks for the link master, but the manuals of the games I downloaded are not there
I only found the zool 1 manual

any other site?

[Thalion]

Originally Posted by aeberbach

You guys!

XCOM was a fantastic game - and it ran better than it did on the Amiga! So was TIE Fighter, X-Wing, so many others. Don't be blinded by your platform of choice. I'm not sure System Shock even got an Amiga release...

Erm what do you want to tell us by this? Tie fighter and X-Wing weren't released to the Amiga. And at that time no one will doubt the fact that MS-DOS PCs are getting more powerful than the Amiga whose development stopped mid 90s. This wasn't even the topic of this discussion. But thanks for your enlighting words.

[Seiya]

Originally Posted by lilalurl

http://www.replacementdocs.com/ has some manuals/protection sheets for PC games.

great manuals source. Thank
I try some download Amiga manual but it seems links are dead

[GraveR]

Originally Posted by Seiya

great manuals source. Thank
I try some download Amiga manual but it seems links are dead

It is a known issue there. It seems the site is in limbo, however you can download the files still:

When you click on download, look at the bad URL it gives you. The correct one is actually part of the bad one. The correct one would look like:

http://files.replacementdocs.com/<FILENAME>

for example:

http://files.replacementdocs.com/Har...nual_-_SGG.pdf

[zodiac]

FYI for those interested. The Good Old Days has provided their PC floppy disk images archive to the Internet Archive. Hopefully, this will help preserve them for the future.

[jasonsbeer]

I came across this a couple months back when I was thinking about building a DOS box.

https://www.dosgames.com/

My Abandonware has games for most every platform. Amiga & DOS included. It's a great site.

https://www.myabandonware.com/

[BastyCDGS]

Total DOS Collection v14 (around 106GB with over 20.000 files got from archive.org) can be downloaded from the EAB file server in my ~Uploads/BastyCDGS directory.