500 Apple II Programs Available Via Browser Emulation

The Internet Archives has thousands upon thousands of pieces of old software that fans can use and play via their browser. Some of these programs will take you right back to school and remind you of days gone by when using the computer lab was the highlight of your school week. The 4am Collection at the Internet Archive is now past 500 titles that were originally published of the Apple II platform and many of these programs have been added to the archive for the first time.

The 4am team is made up of an anonymous person or persons that have the goal of tracking down Apple II programs, removing copy protection and digitizing the software. While the efforts of 4am might be viewed as piracy, this is the only way that these old and obsolete programs are saved from extinction. The process for getting the games online involves finding the physical floppy discs, removing copy protection, and then uploading the software to the Internet Archive in bootable format.

Perhaps the coolest part of this is that if you want to play one of the software titles, all you need do is click on the screenshot of the software and it launches using a browser emulator called JSMESS needing no emulators to be downloaded and no original software needed. Among the programs that are available to play, include Cause and Effect, The Quarter Mile, and The Observatory among others.

Along with the cracked software for the emulators also comes write-ups done by 4am that explains what was done to remove the protection. At least one of the creators of software offered via the emulator isn't upset at 4am. One of the creators of a program called "Classifying Animals with Backbones" has written a review for the 4am version describing how the original software was created.

SOURCE: Archive.org