I've found this to be a pretty good resource for abandoned video games: https://www.myabandonware.com/
Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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This is why sites and services like Archive.org, MyAbandonWare and Myrient are absolutely vital, and why IP owners generally suck balls.
Most classic video games are on my computer, so this study was wrong.
The study acknowledges that piracy is a way to play, but it isn’t legal. Basically we need an equivalent of the Library of Congress for video games, which is a reasonable request and conclusion. There is no way to play without ripping your own cartridges, and even that is still legally gray. See https://youtu.be/yj9Gk84jRiE
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/yj9Gk84jRiE
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Sexy bot
All noted and agreed, I was just being superficially snarky.
Ye-harr
Emulation is a moral imperative.
Mobygames is the place for abandonware games.
I also remember people made a more-or-less complete archive of US Playstaion 1 games and distributed it via Usenet IIRC
That NES controller cable hurts.
I've kept all but my 3DO since 1986 and games. My Sega Master System is the oldest though I have a refurbished Atari 2600. Others include the NES, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, XBox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, WiiU (my kid used to have a Wii but sold it), and Switch. My wife hounds me because most she thinks are for display but they still work. I have countless games for all of them.
I got lucky and got my NES serviced by Nintendo shortly before the release of the Gamecube, when they were still servicing all their old consoles. Soon enough the Wii released, and when they started releasing old games digitally, they stopped servicing their old consoles.
I'm still glad my NES works great to this day.
I will say my original Legend of Zelda is difficult to get working.
Still have a bag of old snes and n64 carts in my closet along with at least 1-2 snes and n64 consoles from my childhood.
I would go to garage sales with my mom as a kid every weekend and I still do sometimes looking for clueless people throwing out old consoles.
I still have all my old N64 carts too. Worried that the internal batteries are dead and my childhood saves long gone.