You can now play over 900 classic arcade games for free in your browser thanks to the Internet Archive, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that collects web pages, text, audio and other information that exists in digital formats. Dig Dug, Galaga, and Golden Axe are just a fraction of the great, though admittedly ancient games you'll find at the Internet Arcade. They all make use of JSMESS, a program that emulates old computers like the Commodore 64, Atari 2600, and hundreds more in Javascript. This weekend, programmer Jason Scott revealed that he modified the program to support hundreds of arcade games. "Of the roughly 900 arcade games (yes, nine hundred arcade games) up there, some are in pretty weird shape – vector games are an issue, scaling is broken for some, and some have control mechanisms that are just not going to translate to a keyboard or even a joypad," Scott said. "But damn if so many are good enough. More than good enough. In the right browser, on a speedy machine, it almost feels perfect. The usual debates about the 'realness' of emulation come into play, but it works." Find any great gems? Let us know in the comments below.
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