In the past few weeks, I've had multiple projects hitting deadlines, and then a long weekend in the Wisconsin Dells, where I was able to unwind most of the accumulated stress. In that time, I basically lost track of what was happening around me, and this little nugget of information got past my filters: THERE'S AN INTERNET ARCADE.
I've had a version of MAME and lots of ROMs for quite some time now (I saved the first versions on floppy disks and a Zip drive!) but I've had difficulty making it portable. Truth is, I end up playing a few favorite games for a week or two, then burn out and forget about it, but today, I'm excited again.
The Internet Archive already has a number of insanely cool projects (legal bootleg music, old program emulation, the wayback machine, etc.) but this might be my favorite. It's all of the arcade games I grew up with (and hundreds more) with some background information, cabinet art, and playable in a browser. Insane. This is my payback for all those quarters all those years ago.
Here's the link to the Internet Arcade: https://archive.org/details/internetarcade
And here's a link to a very helpful troubleshooting article: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4423
It's hard to imagine what other stuff I only imagined in the 80s will be available for free or very little cost in the next decade. I already have a camera that doesn't require film in the same computer that also plays video games and music (and fits in my pocket). Oh yeah, and I can use it to call anyone, anywhere, too. And now I have an entire arcade with no lines, no smoking, and no jerky employees.
Amazing!
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