Kiss your free time goodbye because the Internet Archive, best known for preserving  and backing up old websites, has added a massive project to its database.

Jason Scott, the leader of the effort, undertook a massive emulation project to port coin operated arcade games into Javascript.

The results of the dozens of programmers working on the project for months has been uploaded for posterity on the Internet Archive - a collection of 900 retro arcade games from the 1970's and 80's.

Some players are already saying they can kiss their day jobs goodbye as the massive collection will eat up hours of their day.  But Scott isn't too worried.

"Obviously, a lot of people are going to migrate to games they recognize and ones that they may not have played in years.  They'll do a few rounds, probably get their asses kicked, smile, and go back to their news sites," he said.

So play Astro Blaster, Pac Man, and Krull, without having to insert coins in a machine again ever.


The games are free to play online on any browser that supports Javascript, although since it is so new, bugs are to be expected.  The games also do not come with instruction manuals so players will have to figure out the controls for the games.

According to reports, while most of the nostalgic arcade games were certainly portable, not all are necessarily playable - due to the fact that many of them required specialized, custom button control panels that are difficult to recreate on a keyboard for play-ability.

As the project grows, some fans are hopeful that these dent can be ironed out in time.

The Internet Arcade describes the collection as so:

"The game collection ranges from early 'bronze-age' videogames, with black and white screens and simple sounds, through to large-scale games containing digitized voices, images and music. Most games are playable in some form, although some are useful more for verification of behavior or programming due to the intensity and requirements of their systems."

So point your browsers to the Internet Arcade and make sure you have loads of free time to play all the classic arcade games of yesteryear.

ⓒ 2024 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Join the Discussion