Image: Internet Archive
I have a huge soft spot for outdated computer games and software, so the Internet Archive has given me an excellent Valentine's Day gift in the form of a collection of Windows 3.1 software.Using the open-source DOS emulator DOSBox, Internet Archive's Jason Scott put together a "Windows 3.x Showcase," including over 1000 pieces of early 90s software from both Windows 3.0 and Windows 3.1x. You can play around with the software right in your browser, no download required.The software on offer includes classic games like SkiFree, planetarium-type sky simulator SkyView, and even a tiny dancing Elvis that comments on the size of your cursor. But the highlight for me is Election '92, a game where you influence the outcome of the 1992 US presidential election by throwing puff pastries at the candidates you don't want elected.For the unacquainted, the Internet Archive is a nonprofit dedicated to building an "internet library" by preserving culturally relevant artifacts from the web's history, including political ads and cheeky early-days computer viruses. It also hosts the "Wayback Machine," which can display the site history of over 466 billion indexed webpages.The sheer volume of data created by the internet makes archiving our collective online past a monumental feat. As always, the Internet Archive is doing great work. Now I'm gonna play SkiFree until my eyes bleed.