The weekend’s winding down, and sure, you could flip on your PlayStation or Xbox and play a few mindless rounds of Call of Duty, but why don’t you spin up a real classic instead? Thanks to the new Internet Arcade, an astounding 900 coin-operated arcade games from the ‘70s and ‘80s are free to play right in your browser. The software is hosted by the Internet Archive as part of its quest to preserve computer history, and it’s a followup to last year’s classic console emulator.
The Internet Arcade is the culmination of some impressive coding effort by one Jason Scott and the team behind the multi-platform JSMESS (JavaScript Mess) emulator. The result is something to behold — sure, not every game is easy to play with a keyboard, and bugs abound, but the breadth of the project is simply stunning.
There are no glossy instruction manuals, so you’ll need to figure some things out on your own. The basics are simple. though: press “5” to insert a coin, and press “1” to choose a single player game. Your arrow keys will move you around and the ALT key is typically the action button. Now get out there and have some fun!