back to article You can now play thousands of classic DOS games on Twitter. Goodbye, productivity

The Internet Archive is sharing 2,600 blast-from-the-past DOS games playable in web browsers via Twitter in what is possibly an anarchist plot to strangle global productivity. This means you can tweet links to the games on archive.org, and play them within Twitter. Welcome to the future. The archive's online vault includes …

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. John Gamble

    How About a Nice Game of ...

    And there it is... Sargon Chess. This isn't going to just kill my productivity, it's going to kill any semblance of real life I had left.

  3. VinceH
    Facepalm

    Twitter?

    Huh?

    Do you actually "play them within Twitter" ? Whether I log in to Twitter or not, and view the tweets that way - or not - I just see the links. Clicking on them takes me to the archive.org page for the game.

    Therefore, to play any of the games, you go to the archive.org page for the game, and play it there.

    It's really, really nothing to do with Twitter - and it certainly isn't "since you can embed tweets in web pages" that enables you to include a couple in the article, it's because you can include links in articles, which the embedded tweet just happens to contain.

    All you're doing by putting the link in a tweet, is putting a link in a tweet.

    Unless I'm missing something, or something isn't working here, that's not embedding.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Twitter?

      Yes, Twitter does in fact let websites show a full-featured iframe in the 'details' view. Basically a preview of the link – can be iframe, can be some HTML for news articles, can be an image for Hipstergram.

      'Course, most native clients don't really bother supporting iframes, so this is specific to the website. (YouTube embeds do work in many apps though.)

    2. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: VinceH

      Mate, you can play them on twitter.com or even this Reg article page because the games are embedded automatically. Have you disabled JS? What browser are you using?

      I spent a few minutes this morning playing Wolfenstein 3D on this very site. It works.

      C.

      1. VinceH

        Re: VinceH

        Firefox - and yes, I have Javascript disabled. (I have it allowed by default on some sites, and on others I temporarily allow it as seems necessary/if I feel trusting enough.)

        archive.org's scripts were allowed - that was enough to allow them to play on archive.org.

        theregister.co.uk is allowed by default.

        twitter.com and twimg.com are allowed by default.

        No embedded games appeared either here or on Twitter - as I said, just links to the game's page on archive.org

        However, in the interests of science, I have now allowed all scripts to run (and I've paused Ghostery's blocking, in case that was a factor)

        The page took a lot longer to load than before, and no longer scrolls smoothly - and there are still no embedded games, only links to the page on archive.org

        And again, looking at the tweets on Twitter itself (logged in or not) and they still only contain the link, with no embedded game.

        Running through the config, I can't see anything obvious that I've set that would be blocking the games when embedded (or from being embedded).

        I've now also loaded the page into Internet Explorer and Chrome - still no embedded games, only links (and nothing's disabled or blocked on those because I don't normally use them in anger, only for testing my own pages), and the same in both browsers when looking at the tweets on Twitter.

        I won't bother trying NetSurf! ;)

        1. JohnnyGStrings

          Re: VinceH

          Agree Vince - using Chrome here, disabled all java/ad blocking stuff, page refresh, still no embedded games in the reg article, just clickable links that take me to the archive site. Perhaps only works on certain browsers/versions at the moment...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: VinceH

            Same here...just links no matter what. I've checked everything I can find in 3 browsers on this site, not Twitter (FF, CH, IE)

            I'm In the USA (country could matter...maybe...)

            1. VinceH

              Re: VinceH

              I wondered if it might be a regional roll out as well - since Chris (Diodesign) lives in Overpuddle now. I don't know where Alexander is based, but I've a feeling here in the UK. That (if my guess is right) would rule out it being a regional thing. And if you're over there, that probably rules it out as well.

              It could still be a gradual roll out, I suppose, with who it does and doesn't work for being determined by some other factor that we can't directly see.

        2. Havin_it
          Stop

          Re: VinceH

          Not sure when this happened, but:

          http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/04/twitter-kills-ms-dos-games-embedded-in-tweets

          Looks like the "party" is over (and archive.org's server bills can settle back down to normal).

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ASM.js....? .....JUSTIFIED!

    I always wondered WTF you really needed AMS.js for, now I get it! Chalk it up to the 2nd biggest achievement on the net (right behind mass deployment of porn). Wait...WOW! Think if twitter also starts allowing porn...WOW!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: ASM.js....? .....JUSTIFIED!

      Think if twitter also starts allowing porn

      You're following the wrong people...

  5. h3

    Has to be warez. Cannot imagine there is any way Disney would allow Aladdin on there.

    And the copy protection is cracked.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I fucking hate Disney, but believe it or not, they even started an open source 3-D engine (Pirates of the Caribbean MMO uses it, in fact I think it was the first real open source 3-D engine). So, I'm not too sure if Disney cares if kids get hooked on their products. Sadly, Disney is smarter than Nintendo (who might prosecute your child if they make a video for free, nevermind playing the game for free!).

  6. thomas k.

    Finally, a reason to join Twitter!

    Not.

  7. g e

    Not to mention this little gem...

    https://archive.org/details/msdos_Cuntlet_1992

    nuff said ?!?!?!?!

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