If you grew up in the mid to late 80s, like I did, then you have probably experienced the pleasure of playing classic MS-DOS games like Classic Concentration, Wheel of Fortune, and Bowling. As time has moved on, many of these games have become relics as operating systems, like Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X, become more advanced. Thanks to emulation technology, however, I can relive my childhood and play these classic games on my Windows 7-based laptop computer. And today, I’m going to show you how to play classic MS-DOS games on your Windows or Mac computer (this also works on Linux, too!).

Step One: Download DOSBox for Your Operating System. This emulation software recreates the look and feel of the classic MS-DOS operating system, but runs on Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and numerous distributions of the Linux operating system. It is currently free to download at www.dosbox.com and is 100% legal.

Step Two:  Find Games That You Loved (or Still Love). There are numerous Web sites available that have classic MS-DOS games available for free and paid download. Just a few of them are:

• The DOS Games Archive:  http://www.dosgamesarchive.com
• Classic DOS Games: http://www.classicdosgames.com/online.php
• Classic PC Games – Abandonware & Classic Games:  http://www.classic-pc-games.com
• Over 500 DOS Games:  http://www.dosgames.com

On these sites, you can find a wide variety of the classic MS-DOS you grew to know and love. Among these titles, you will find Crazy Cars 3, Lemmings, The Incredible Machine, The Price is Right, Family Feud, Classic Concentration, and a multitude of others. Personally, I recommend any of the games based off of television series. All the fun you can have without commercial interruption (not only that, but they support multiplayer, too)!

Step Three:  Download the Games to Your Hard Drive. Most of these games are available in the ZIP format, which is compatible with both WinZip and WinRAR software. Upon extracting these archives, however, make sure that you unzip each archive to the same directory. This will make step four much easier.

Step Four:  Run DOSBox and Mount Your Directory. This isn’t as difficult as it sounds. Let’s say that you download the archives to C:\Downloads. All you have to do is run DOSBox and, when prompted, type mount c c:\Downloads. All you have to do is browse to the directory that houses your game, run the appropriate file, and have fun playing!

What were some of your favorite DOS games growing up? Please leave your thoughts and insights in the comments below!