More Than 600 Old School Apple II Games Are Now Free to Play Online

Once upon a time when Apple II computers were all the rage, games were stored on copy-protected floppy disks. The computers were discontinued decades ago and the games have all but died with them, but according to Popular Mechanics, one retro gaming hero is working to preserve as much of the throwback catalog as possible, making each game playable via an Internet browser.

Operating under the name 4am, the gamer finds the rare disks and removes the protection so that they can be digitized. Familiar titles including Frogger, Rampage, and Donkey Kong, and more obscure games like Stickybear Word Problems and Tommy the Time Telling Turtle are then uploaded to the Internet Archive where they can be enjoyed through a browser-based emulator called JSMESS. The most recent count for the 4am Collection sits at 642 titles, with more being added periodically. “With an agnostic approach to the disks being preserved,” archivist Jason Scott writes, “4am has brought to light many programs that fall almost into the realm of lore and legend, only existing as advertisements in old computer magazines or in catalog listings of computer stores long past.”

Click over to the Internet Archive to see which games are available now, and check back often to see what 4am adds next.

Images via Internet Archive

[h/t Popular Mechanics]