Well, the playing experience is terrible thus far. And I prefer messing with the pure DOS (or DOSBox) command prompt anyway.

Hmm . Have you checked Wolfenstein 3D ?

The entire MAME ROM archive is available for download.

I don't think an exhibit for "scholarship and research purposes" is necessary for Street Fighter II. Sorry, that's just a stupid excuse.
A legally purchased arcade machine? What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

That's how I see it.

I had a public library where you could check out video games and play them and bring them back. This is keeping it all within the browser, so it's not like you can "keep" the game.

I have no problem with this, so long as a legit IP owner doesn't have a problem with it.

This is a good clear example of how we need some laws to help govern these things. Tons of people want games to be archived as the artful masterpieces that they are. But the software "rental"-like license rights that govern over software are simply insufficient for the correct preservation of software.

I would be rather mad if my $50 game showed up on the site. But as it is, nobody's making much money from these. So where is the cut-off? When does the license or copyright expire? When can it be released to the masses for no charge? When can it be archived? Hopefully one day, we'll have laws concerning it. Otherwise, an attempt to archive the wonderful digital art of the 80s and 90s will just look like a shady attempt to draw in crowds.

This. Whoever did their MESS setup for most of the games I attempted in browser emulation for, was effing terrible, especially if the game required mouse support. >.<

I completely disagree.

1) I don't see where you can download the MAME ROM. But even if you can,
2) Street Fighter 2 and many others are important to looks at for scholarship and research purposes.

Just like any kid going through an encyclopedia and looking at a famous painter's depiction of a great event, I think we should be able to view these works of art for free. But I think the question is: when does that happen?

When the author allows? Or dies? Or 70 years after death? (copyright) Or a certain time after it's been released? (patents)

As the law is now (as I understand it), there's never a time.

This may be IA's attempt to deliver a precedence. Or maybe not.

You can download and keep the whole Mame collection. You can also download and keep games like Cannon Fodder 2 and Quake; games that are still being sold on GOG and Steam, respectively.

Excuse for what? They are an accepted 501(c)(3) non-profit museum (& non-profit motivations fit not well with piracy).

Also, the majority of stuff they have archived is avaialble by no one else, so the individual titles discussed here who are still available ("non-orphaned works") are in the total minority, so no drama here.

They have an opt-out system ("copyright holders complains"), the only feasible way for saving significant parts our software history. gog.com's explicit opt-in approach ("copyright holders agrees") can only save a very a small subset, way to slow and too much work.
This is my guess/hope too...

I'm sure it's tough for them to figure out IP rights issues (just look at GOG's hard work at it), but I agree. It seems that if someone's making money off of it, it should be off-limits unless those people explicitly agree.

And I'd also agree that it might not be best to allow downloads (but then again, maybe it's okay for some games?).

It's definitely a big gray area, which is why I understand the wide range of reactions. But I'm glad that they're at least doing something. Our laws are inadequate and it usually takes action before laws get molded into the right form.

My hope and dream is that I'll have a digital encyclopedia when I'm 60 years old and that I'll be able to show my children real-life samples of the digital world and not just read about them. And IA's work here is at least a step (if not a bit of an overstep) in the right direction.

https://archive.org/details/MAME_0.151_ROMs

My problem is not with the old obscure stuff, but with the easily available and sold items, like Street Fighter II and MOO. If it's available to be purchased, it shouldn't be on there to play or just download for free.

If their true purpose is to save video games losts forever, I could think that would be nice, although I would prefer an offline version.
But for games already sold elsewhere or games with copyrights still active, I was asking that question : "do we like a free DRM'd version or a nonfree DRM-free version?" (in the meaning of free beer)

It does look like they've started using full games, which I do see something as a potential issue, given that they have games like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade there. Disney might take an offence to that. I think this will be resolved in one way or an another during upcoming weeks.

Nice glimpse into the mythical drying well of classic games.

"contact Jason Scott, Software Curator, if there are issues or questions."

I did, I suggest others do the same.

jscott@archive.org

This is the better site which only contains freeware (green), shareware (blue) and public domain (red) games:

http://www.classicdosgames.com/online.html

Thanks, I will congratulate him for his bravery against the broken copyright system.

Are you in contact with the site owner? I tried several times already to reach him by email to give him information about several additions from like [url=http://web.archive.org/web/20141217171636/http://ironseed.com/ironseed-v1.20.0016-2013-03-17.zip]Ironseed...