I picked up a lil usb dvd drive years ago
Don’t use it much but it waits ready in the tech closet. Cost like $20.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
I searched for and found an audio CD last month, and then proceeded to rip it on my PC as mp3.
No idea why some people don’t have CD drives anymore.
So many computer cases don’t have 5.25" bays anymore. But some do and those are ones I end up purchasing because I have a few CD/DVD drives kicking around that I’ll toss in my computers when I build them because I’d rather have it and rarely use it than not have it and have to turn to a noisy and slow USB DVD drive
This is why piracy is so important.
🤔 is it considered piracy if you’re downloading a copy of something you already own?
In the US it is. 🙃
Yes. Companies in the US get to sell the cake and keep it too.
I mean those are just rules that some asshole made up. Make up your own.
Nothing is illegal in any way that actually matters except harming another person. All other laws are just words. It’s just a question of whether someone is willing to hold you at gunpoint to make you stop what you’re doing or not.
Which, for downloading pirated copies of old games, is almost certainly a “no”. Especially if you use the most basic opsec but even that probably isn’t necessary. (Don’t use Torrent without a VPN though, ISPs really look out for that, especially shit-ass Spectrum.)
Blud, I have this problem. But with 3.5" floppy disks.
I got an unopened box with a USB DVD/Blue ray player. I am good.
Cutely goes to the internet and download the game for free from there with hopefully no viruses
