You can get USB drives for a pittance.
Anyway unless it’s something from the 90s, the DRM is one or all of those:
- Hardcoded for windows XP and refuse to run on anything else
- Must connect to an activation server that was turned off two decades ago
- Requires the installation of a rootkit
Been moving the same DVD-RW drive to every new computer for like 20 years. I’ll be able to read Mechwarrior 2 until I die.
Time to grab a USB powered dvd drive? I don’t have a 5.25, but we’ve got a 3.5 and a zip disk what run off USB that hold our access to our old disk troves. I should probably move them all to a single thumb drive one of these days.
Look up your old favourite games. A lot of them have communities that have kept them updated so their playable on modern hardware as long as you have a (totally legal) ISO or disc in your possession.
For example, Project Magma has been keeping Myth The Fallen Lords and Myth II: Soulblighter going for 25+ years now.
I loved this game back when Bungie was a Mac-only developer and it holds up pretty well with a couple graphics mods in addition to the work Project Magma has done.
I currently have 4 old Thinkpad T420s (nice) set up just to run this game on Linux with some friends around the kitchen table.
LibreQuake is another one. I’m not as familiar with what they’ve been up to, as I never had a computer that could run Quake in its heyday, so it doesn’t hold the same nostalgia for me. That said, I appreciate their work anyway.
OpenRA keeps Command & Conquer and its various sequels and spin-offs alive, including Dune 2000. Combined Arms is especially fun; a version that includes all the armies from all the games.
Steam allowed me to use the old security code for my physical copy of Medieval 2: Total War to allow me to download a digital copy updated to work on Windows 10.
I have a CD drive you can plug into your computer for CDs.
I have a disc drive in my computer. I’ve still torrented games that I have on my shelf because its easier.
They sell the drive as a USB item, buy one of those and enjoy.
Blud, I have this problem. But with 3.5" floppy disks.
This is why piracy is so important.
A usb cd/dvd/bluray drive is like $20 on amazon, nothing stopping you.
Just a heads up-
Asus’ USB DVD drives ‘with USB-C’ are not USB-C, they have a crappy MicroUSB to USB-C cable included in the box.
So if you wanted one with USB-C on the device- DO NOT BUY ASUS.
Just curious how you think this will impact performance? Reading of a DVD or CD would not be a nottleneck due to what USB interface used, its always going to be the device its self so it really doesnt matter at all. If anything props to them for at least updating to the latest to maximize compatibility.
It won’t impact performance, but microusb is dead. Apart from this dvd drive, I haven’t used microusb in ~2 years.
Microusb might as well be proprietary to me at this point, I have ‘infinite’ usb-c to usb-c data cables (and at one point, I did for microusb too…) but only 2 working microusb cables now, I never wanted to have to buy another one.
Plus, you might also need to spin up virtualbox with a windows 95 iso.
It’s funny to me how people hate on ai but still use Amazon.
They’re both equally immoral.
The unfortunate reality is sometimes you don’t have a choice.
Between Walmart and Amazon a lot of places have had their retail hollowed out.
I’m lucky in that there is an electronics retailer near me that I’m quite sure would have something like this but your local best buy is unlikely to carry such an item. Maybe a staples would have it for 3 times the cost of the same item on Amazon.
and some people claim to be anti-capitalism yet they have jobs and pay for food and housing… curious…
Using Amazon isn’t a requirement for living comfortably. It’s a luxury that people could easily do without if they would just take the extra time to find an alternative.
I get what you’re trying to say but I don’t think it fits here.
I mean, I get where you are coming from, but they are also my backup durable medical equipment supplier. I have two options in my area and they are number two. If you rely on medical equipment and have ever been jerked around by a supplier, having one that is responding to your money and only your money is very nice.
Like, I bought some pink tape off Amazon a few years back. Someone had unspooled the roll until it was almost empty then put it back in the box, then sold it to Amazon to sell to me. Nice scam, right? Fortunately the equipment I need is not returnable like the pink tape. Since I need medical equipment and when I need it from them I need immediately, it makes sense for us to pay for prime. Comes out to about six bucks a head if I did the math right, and I didn’t even try
Cutely goes to the internet and download the game for free from there with hopefully no viruses
Currently rocking an internal blu ray drive and external floppy one (only because I couldn’t find an internal one), I can’t possibly imagine not having an optical drive on my computers. I still own a lot of disks including software and movies, I won’t just throw everything away because the tech is now deemed obsolete (which is debatable on top of that, currently have a better quality on blu ray than on streaming platforms, plus no ads and works offline) If only it were easier to install multi-disk software through wine/proton though…
Honestly, invest in a Blu-ray writer and pick up some decent 25gb discs.
Not only can you play old games, but you can archive data in a relatively stable format at a much lower price point.
