All news items:

8 May 2008

• Added Dinner With Moriarty, Duel 2000, Jigsaws Galore, and Tribolo.
• Added a section for previously unreleased games that have been sent to me by the authors of classic DOS games.
• Finally learned how to spell "independent" and corrected URLs and links.
• One quarter of all games have now been rated by our visitors! For those who don't know how to do this, click on the rating under the title bar of each game to be taken to the forum thread where your vote can be recorded.

30 April 2008

• Added an interview of Qbix.

28 April 2008

• Added an interview of Jennifer Diane Reitz.
• All site interviews now have their own thread in the forum so that visitors can discuss how it went and ask their own questions!

15 April 2008

• There's a new addition to the navigation bar: Google Ads. Why is it there? Has Classic DOS Games gone mad with greed? Are there straitjackets and white rubber rooms in our future? Actually, it supports a very good cause! You can read all about it in the Forum.

1 April 2008

• Added an interview of Bill Gates, the man behind MS-DOS!

31 March 2008

• Added an interview of David P. Gray.

27 March 2008

• Made some visual updates and fulfilled a number of requests. Changed color scheme so that games are color coded by legal status, regardless of whether or not they are DOS or Win16 games (which can easily be determined in the status bar below the title), and changed public domain from yellow to red, which is easier to read. Screenshot filenames are now more browser-friendly (no spaces).
• Added RSS feed so that visitors can be informed when there are updates.
• Added an anchor to every game on every page, which is the name of the game with spaces replaced by underscores. For example, if you want to send a friend a link to your favorite game on the Puzzle page, the link would be www.classicdosgames.com/puzzle.html#My_Favorite_Puzzle_Game. This will also aid users of voice-based browsers to skip directly to the entry they are interested in hearing.

14 March 2008

• Completed a major Quality Assurance campaign. Dozens of typos have been corrected (shame on you for not resporting them). License filenames are now more browser-friendly (no spaces).

7 March 2008

• Classic DOS Games has its 3rd anniversary.
• Added Dare to Dream.
• Donations are now optional for the Classic DOS Games DVD.

4 March 2008

• Added VGATetris.

24 February 2008

• Added SinkSub and Xerix II: The Caverns of Mars.
• The Zork Trilogy Petition now has over 500 signatures, and I'm going to formally present it to Infocom. If you want your name to be included, sign it now!

21 February 2008

• Added The Adventures of MicroMan, MESH: Hero Defiant, MESH: Hero's Hearts, Sherlock for Windows, and Space Nightmare.

18 February 2008

• Got permission from Colin Garbutt to distribute Kye as freeware.

15 February 2008

• Added SkiFree and World Empire IV.
• Attention Jetpack fans: Adam Pedersen has begun development of Jetpack 2, and you can help! Jetpack 2 has a development blog, and the author is hoping for donations of art, sound effects and music.

13 February 2008

• Added Kye, Star Wars: Dark Forces, and World Empire III.
• Created a new guide to helping out the website: How to help the site for free.

5 February 2008

• Added Alien Force, Castle of the Winds, Football, Slam! and World Empire II Deluxe.
• Got permission from Robert Epps to distribute Slam! as freeware.
• Added a new Advanced DOSBox Tutorial with information on running Windows 3.1 in DOSBox, and how to play Super VGA games.
• Added a Drivers section.

31 January 2008

• Phase V, the final phase of the major update, is complete. The site now includes Win16 games, since they also required DOS. There are now 600 versions of classic games on the site. Made contact with Pop Software, who are attempting to fulfill orders for the Space Bats games as soon as possible. A new interview is about to be published. Oh, and since this is still a game site, I added some new games.
• Added Commander Keen: Aliens Ate My Babysitter, Hugo's Horrific Adventure, Hugo's House of Horrors, Hugo II, Whodunit?, Hugo III, Jungle of Doom!, Nitemare-3D, and Xerix.

21 January 2008

• Added Electranoid, Fuzzy's World of Miniature Space Golf, and Xatax.

13 January 2008

• Added Super ZZT.
• There are now 575 versions of classic games on the site! To the best of my knowledge, Classic DOS Games has the most game downloads of any legal DOS games site in the world.
• Added a new "member game" and a new utility.

7 January 2008

• Added Catch, If You Can!, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and World Empire.

2 January 2008

• It's January 2, so it must be time for the first freeware release of the year!
• Got permission from Everett Kaser to distribute Snarf as freeware.

31 December 2007

• Added Argo Checkers, Hero's Heart, Kosynka, Snarf, Solitile, and Teenagent.
• Upgraded the forum software, which adds some fun new functionality, like birthdays and the ability to change your vote if you find out that a game is much more awesome than you thought.
• Trying out new wallpaper for the site. There are no plans to redo the kitchen.

18 December 2007

• Phase IV of the major update is complete. Games can now be sorted by video mode, and there are now screenshots (categorizing games and adding screenshots is still in progress). Added a Strategy genre. Users can now rate compatibility utilities. The site has been rewritten so that all pages load instantly (on a fast internet connection). A new tutorial is almost finished. Oh, and since this is still a game site, I added some new games.
• Added Gobliiins, Gobliins 2: The Prince Buffoon, and Goblins Quest 3.
• You can now sign-up for the Classic DOS Games Newsletter! Once a month you'll receive an email containing updates, trivia, and occasionally contests. This is guaranteed to not be spam; your email address will never be given to any other party or used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

11 December 2007

• The second batch of the Classic DOS Games DVD has gone out!
• The Classic DOS Games DVD currently has 873 MB of stuff on it, which means that there are almost 4 GB left that could be used for extras. Many gamers like to listen to music while they play, so if you have a band that could use some free publicity, please contact me about including your music. If anyone else has any suggestions for cool extras, I'd love to hear from you. Remember that it has to be your own creation so that I can legally distribute it.

8 December 2007

• FreeRice has doubled their donation to 20 grains per correct answer, and the donation level has reached 7 billion grains of rice! But let's not forget that there is hunger in our own communities as well. We should be charitable all year round, but winter is a particularly difficult time for many people, as the cost of heating is a burden in many parts of the world. While you're donating rice to people in developing countries, please donate non-perishable goods to your local food shelter. Our world has enough abundance to feed every human being, but there are even people starving in a land of plenty. Let's think globally and locally and help hungry people wherever they may be.

2 December 2007

• The 2008 fiscal year is about to begin. Classic DOS Games will spend $47.88 on webhosting in 2008 ($3.99 per month). If anyone is able to donate one or more months, that would be really appreciated. Note: Most expenses on the Donations page are listed in US dollars because the goods and services were purchased from US companies who list prices in US dollars. Those expenses are paid for in Canadian dollars from my Canadian bank account! Now that the Canadian and US dollars have equal value, it would really help me out if donations could be made in Canadian funds to prevent me from having to pay a roughly 2.5% currency conversion fee. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far. I really didn't expect the site's 2008 webhosting expenses to be covered so quickly.
• The last time I thought up a donation campaign, the ill-fated Have a Penny, Donate a Penny campaign, in April 2006, I noted that Classic DOS Games was getting about 6000 unique visitors per month. Today Classic DOS Games averages over 14 000 unique visitors per month. Thank you to everyone for your support throughout 2007! See the chart.

24 November 2007

• Added Keen Dreams, Heroes, and Sherlock.

17 November 2007

• Added Telengard.
• There are now 200 games on the site!

11 November 2007

• Added Hexxagon and Tubes.
• Over the years, many DOS programmers have asked me to add their recent games to the site, which didn't meet the criteria to be considered "classic" DOS games. It was never my intention that DOS should stagnate or be abandoned. In the hope that DOS gaming will continue to flourish and grow, I have added a section for new games created by Classic DOS Games members. These games will not be added to the Classic DOS Games game count.
• Those of you who visit regularly know that there are very few things that I promote with this website. Today I make an exception to promote a fun game that saves lives. It's an online vocabulary game called FreeRice. You're presented with a word and four possible definitions. For every answer you get correct, 10 grains of rice are donated through the United Nations to help end world hunger. The site is paid for by advertisers, in the form of three small corporate logos at the bottom of the screen. No registration is necessary, and it doesn't ask for any personal information. Don't bother cheating: the questions get easier when you answer incorrectly, and harder when you answer correctly. Just play the game until it finds your level. It's good for your vocabulary, and it's good for desperately poor people who don't even have food, let alone computers and internet access. After donating 10000 grains of rice my Vocab Level was 41, with a high of 44.

8 November 2007

• Phase III of the major update is complete. Every game on the site now has a full review. Each game has a user rating based on votes in the Forum. Performed a long overdue update of the MoraffWare games. Shareware games list whether the game is a full game that requested registration, or a partial game, like the first episode of a series; freeware list whether they were formerly commercial software, shareware, or games that were free. Games can also be searched by those criteria. Rewrote code to make pages load significantly faster. Added glowing title bars. Oh, and since this is still a game site, I added some new games.
• Added Corridor 7: Alien Invasion and Jetpack Christmas Special!.
• Added an interview of Adam Pedersen.
• Isn't momentum great? The coolest stuff is usually the hardest to implement, so the most exciting changes are still to come!

23 October 2007

• The first batch of the Classic DOS Games DVD has gone out!

21 October 2007

• Phase II of the major update is complete. Added license information to descriptions and a Licenses section to prove that freeware games are free. Added CSS to make link underlines the same color as links in Firefox. Switched to a more standard text size. Improved appearance of title graphics. Reorganized the Forum; polls can now be created in some categories. Oh, and since this is still a game site, I added some new games.
• Added Abuse and Space Chase.

8 October 2007

• Got permission from Larry Tipton to distribute Drum Blaster as freeware.
• Added Galacta, Vinyl Goddess From Mars, and Xmas Lemmings.

2 October 2007

• On 15 June 2007, the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish 2 October as the International Day of Non-Violence. This date was chosen because it is the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi had the power to command hundreds of millions of people to violently expel colonial forces from India, but he was prepared to sacrifice his own life to prevent violence. Today should be a day for non-violence not only on a national scale, but at a personal level. Resolve to be non-violent today, and then do it again tomorrow, and every day after, taking it one day at a time. We can choose to create a world where everyone can live a long, healthy, happy, peaceful life. To reflect on what we've done, and can resolve to never do again, enjoy this free video of Linkin Park's What I've Done on YouTube. Make video games, not war!

30 September 2007

• Phase I of the major update I was talking about is complete. It is now possible to search games by legal status and year released. The forum is about to get a huge interactivity upgrade. I finally chose a logo for the DOS Games Compatibility Wiki. If anyone can design a better one, please let me know! I've created a blog so that I can talk more about games and gaming than I normally can in the site's game reviews. I've created a page that explains what distributed computing projects are and why you should choose one, and started a petition to encourage operating system vendors to ask users to select a project during the installation or activation process. A ton of invisible upgrades have occurred to make it easier to add games and new criteria to search them with, and to make it easier to create up-to-date copies of the new Classic DOS Games DVD. Oh, and since this is still a game site, I added some new games.
• Added Mah Jongg -8514- and One Must Fall.

6 September 2007

• Dear Chris, Taylor, Kevin, and Melissa: I appreciate your donation of one penny. At this point, if even 1/10th of the visitors to Classic DOS Games would donate a single penny, I could cover the cost of hosting the site for years. Unfortunately, the Have a Penny, Donate a Penny Campaign has failed. PayPal charges a fee of $0.01 on every donation of $0.01, leaving me with $0.00. Allowing billions of web surfers to donate their pocket change to websites they enjoy, and charging fees on a monthly basis instead of on each transaction, could have been a revolutionary way to allow small, non-commercial websites to make money. On a global scale, the market for such donations could have reached millions of dollars per year, and PayPal would have still gotten their cut, but they declined my request to consider such a system. Our loss is their loss. There's no sense in letting PayPal keep the money, so I'm giving each of you your penny back. Best regards.

26 August 2007

• This is it, folks! Some pages were unavailable for a few minutes this morning because I've just completed the most significant database update to the site ever. The change will soon allow games to be searched by any criteria. I can also add new games much more easily than before, and a huge update is on its way!
• Due to popular demand, Classic DOS Games is now available on DVD-R! As you hopefully have noticed, there are no ads on this website, so I depend entirely on donations to help fund the website. I tried to allow donations as small as one penny, but PayPal insisted on taking their "cut", which is 100% of donations that small. As for donations that get into actual dollars, I can appreciate that no one likes paying for something that they can just take for free, so I thought about ways that I could offer something of value in return. With the Classic DOS Games DVD, you can take more than 500 versions of the best classic games with you wherever you go (still conveniently catalogued in website form), make a donation to the website, and have something interesting to show for it. Please visit the Store for more information!
• The DOS Historical Preservation Society needs an Amiga in order to use special archival software that bypasses the Floppy Disk Controller found in PCs and instructs floppy drives at a hardware level in order to make bit-perfect copies of hundreds of DOS floppy disks before they degrade and become unreadable. This software was developed by other software preservation societies and is critical because it can even detect and correct corrupted bits. If anyone can help me acquire or borrow one, please let me know.

9 August 2007

• The White House has recently disclosed that United States President George Bush has been treated for Lyme disease. I've made a Get Well card for him that you're welcome to pass along. The card and the President's email address are on this page. Note: this is a joke.

1 August 2007

• Got permission from John Pallett-Plowright to distribute Traffic Department 2192 as freeware.
• Added DOSBox v0.71 and Virtual PC 2007, and overhauled the Utilities section.

18 June 2007

• Added Jazz Jackrabbit: Holiday Hare and Jazz Jackrabbit: Holiday Hare 1995.
• Added DOSBox tutorial to the Tutorials page.

16 May 2007

• Added DND and Dungeons of the Necromancer's Domain.

8 May 2007

• Added Chinese Checkers and Redhook's Revenge.
• Classic DOS Games was featured in a podcast on Green Ring Ethos! Originally aired on 9 November 2006, Episode 12 talks about the site from 18:39 to 21:39. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that Classic DOS Games has been mentioned in audio. If anyone is aware of any other articles about the site on websites, podcasts, newspapers or magazines, please let me know!
• I'm back! Didn't know I was gone? My computer, which was already on its last leg, finally gave out in February. One of the capacitors fried and left a nifty burn mark on the motherboard. I've never actually seen a motherboard do that. Anyway, it's a new year, and the government offered me a new contract, which means I have money again. I've paid off all of my bills, and I've built myself a new computer.

9 April 2007

• www.classicdosgames.com is back! After a long battle with my former ISP, I've finally been able to transfer the domain to my new registrar.

7 March 2007

• Classic DOS Games has its 2nd anniversary.
• classicdosgames.com has become classicdosgames.org.
• Added source code for Jumpman Lives!
• Added DOSBox v0.70 and Mo'Slo v1.5.1 to the Utilities section.
• Completed a massive overhaul of the DOS Games Compatibility Wiki, categorizing games that run perfectly in Windows XP, games that play perfectly in Windows XP once VDMSound is used for SB16 emulation, as well as games that play perfectly in ScummVM and TrollVM.

30 January 2007

• Added Aspetra, Banyon Wars, Battle for Atlantis, Crusher, and Crusher Castle II.

21 January 2007

• Added Numlo.
• For a change of pace, I've been interviewed by a website called ASCII-World, which is devoted exclusively to ASCII games and art. Learn about the philosophy of this website, my feelings on a number of topics, and find out where all of the games come from! Also, learn how Classic DOS Games got its name, and the name I almost used instead. It's a long interview.

7 January 2007

• Added Bolo Ball, Dotso, Isle Wars, Sea Run, and Spider Run.

29 December 2006

• Added Alpha Man, Ant Run, Balloon Challenge, Blind Wars, Block-man, and Block Man 2.

11 December 2006

• The DOS Games Compatibility Wiki is finally back up! I was able to retrieve the database from my former webhost, so the site should be fully functioning again. If you experience any problems of any kind, please contact me immediately. I apologize for the long downtime. I'm now using a superior webhost and paying less money for hosting! Things should return to normal now.

1 December 2006

• I moved all files to Classic DOS Games' new webhost on 20 November, and called PowWeb on 30 November to advise them to cancel my service on 1 December. This would give me the rest of the day to download things that can't be downloaded in advance: copies of the forum, wiki, and my webstats. PowWeb cancelled my service immediately, in a final example of how lousy their service is. The early cancellation caught me off guard and forced me to update the DNS servers to my new webhost, even though the transfer wasn't complete, and caused the website to be unavailable, or available in a very limited form, for most of 30 November and 1 December. I have uploaded an old backup of the forum to the new webhost, but I won't be able to restore the missing entries or transfer the wiki until PowWeb restores my hosting package on 2 December. I apologize for the further inconvenience. Learn from my mistake: stay away from PowWeb!

20 November 2006

• The site was unavailable for about 8 hours on 19 November 2006 due to scheduled server maintenance by my webhost, which exceeded the downtime allowed by their 99.9% uptime guarantee. Three days of data were never recovered following a botched server migration following their transitition to new management. They continue to force changes on me despite my protests, and they clearly don't read my emails when they respond. I've had it with PowWeb and will be switching to a new webhost on 1 December 2006. The site may be briefly unavailable while global DNS servers propagate the site's new location. I apologize for this necessary inconvenience.

6 November 2006

• Added Arcy 2, Cargo Bay, Corncob 3D, and Rings of the Magi.

29 October 2006

• Added Rescue Rover and Turbo.

23 September 2006

• Added Charlie II.
• Labelled the website with ICRA labels to allow parental and other filtering software to determine the appropriateness of the content of the site.
• New content would have been added sooner, but my webhost is under new management and required a lengthy migration to their servers which didn't go smoothly for Classic DOS Games. When I was finally able to convince them to manually migrate my site because the self-migration tool refused to do so, they migrated a copy of the site that was three days old, causing all wiki entries and webstats from those days to be lost.

9 July 2006

• Added Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian, Blood, Charlie the Duck, Round 42, Sango Fighter, Super Angelo, and Trugg.

25 June 2006

• Got permission from xLand to distribute Adventures of Robbo, Electro Man, and Heartlight PC as freeware.

3 June 2006

• Got permission from Maciej Miasik to release the unreleased shareware version of Adventures of Robbo.

28 May 2006

PayPal's response to my concerns about charging a 100% fee on transactions and keeping all donations to the Have a Penny, Donate a Penny campaign was that they cannot change their fee structure, so they apparently believe that charging a 100% fee is acceptable and ethical business practice. I have sent two additional emails to request that the policy be reviewed, which have gone unanswered. Rather than let PayPal keep your donations, I have refunded all donations to the campaign. Although I was assured that the fees would also be refunded, PayPal seems to be charging a fee of $0.01 on the refunds, so it appears that PayPal has "refunded" your money, only to keep it for themselves as a transaction fee. I have sent an email to ask why a fee appears next to the refund in my transaction list. Rest assured, I will fight for the return of your money on ethical grounds. Added Heroes: The Tantalizing Trio

18 May 2006

• A major problem has been identified with the Have a Penny, Donate a Penny campaign. I forgot that PayPal charges a commission on all donations made by credit card (but not from bank account or PayPal balances), which is the most common way for people to transfer money. The fee apparently rounds up to the nearest penny, so PayPal is simply keeping all donations. I have contacted PayPal to request that they refund all donations to the donors and have offered a compromise where they can take their commission from all pennies donated on a monthly or annual basis, rather than on every donation, so that they aren't charging a 100% commission. If necessary, I will refund all donations out of my own pocket (through my bank account so that it actually gets to them). In the meantime, please donate your pennies by means other than credit cards, or donate them to charity instead. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far.

15 May 2006

• Added Crazy Eights.

18 April 2006

• Got permission from Clay Hellman to distribute Cybersphere and Cybersphere Plus as freeware.

17 April 2006

• Added Adventures of Captain Comic, Crates, Cybersphere, and Jelly Bean Factory
• Started the Have a Penny, Donate a Penny campaign. I realized that the site gets about 6000 unique visitors per month. If 1 in 6 of them were to donate a penny, all of the site's expenses could be covered. PayPal allows donations of a single penny, so if you find the site worth a penny to you, please consider donating one.

11 March 2006

• Added Skunny: Back to the Forest, Skunny: Desert Raid, Skunny: Lost in Space, Skunny: Save Our Pizzas, Skunny: Wild West, and Skunny Kart.

7 March 2006

• Classic DOS Games has its 1st anniversary.

27 February 2006

• Added Castle Adventure.

25 February 2006

• Added Dungeons of Grimlor, Dungeons of Grimlor 2: The Lich, General Budda's Labyrinth, Robot Crusades, and Solder Runner.

16 February 2006

• Got permission from Richard Lang and Psion Software to distribute Psion Chess as freeware.
• Created the DOS Historical Preservation Society to preserve the DOS operating system, games, and other software, in both physical and data form.

31 January 2006

• Added an interview of Joe Siegler.

12 January 2006

• Added "latest news" section to the website. I had never bothered to keep a revision history, in part because I didn't think anyone cared. Someone asked for one, so I made one. I had to put all of the website's history up until now in one entry.
• Added $0.73 to site revenues.

2005

• Purchased domain name and hand-coded website in HTML, CSS and PHP.
• Drafted mission statement and privacy policy.

• Added 130 games (341 versions) and wrote 117 reviews.
• Created a public forum.
• Created the DOS Games Compatibility Wiki.

• Got Activision's legal department to declare the legal status of the Zork Trilogy.
• Got permission from Mark Currie to distribute Chopper Commando as freeware and release the source code.
• Got permission from Ron Balewski to distribute Mah Jongg -8514-, Mah Jongg -V-G-A-, and Mah Jongg LapTop as freeware.
• Got permission from Accursed Toys to distribute the DOS version of Boppin' as freeware.
• Got Revolution Software to distribute the full CD and floppy versions of Beneath a Steel Sky and release the source code.
• Got permission from Mike Voss to distribute all of Moonlite Software's classic games as freeware (Clyde's Adventure, Clyde's Revenge, Crazy Eights, Cribbage, Taking Care of Business).

• Created 9 petitions to have discontinued games re-released for sale or as freeware, 3 of which have ended successfully.

• Interviewed John Passfield, Nels Anderson, Ken Silverman and Owen Thomas.

• Spent $186.48 on hosting and collected $0.45 in revenue.