Space Invaders for DOS
A downloadable game
In 2024 I spent one month, using spare time, to write a Space Invaders clone that works on any IBM PC/XT or higher and compatibles. It was made as a learning exercise for myself. I also needed to take a rest from a huge and exhausting game project I'm currently finishing.
As far as I know, there never was an official port for the IBM PC and/or MS-DOS/PC-DOS of the mythical Space Invaders arcade machine (1978). There were a few clones like Space Commanders or Michael Abrash's Space Strike, both from 1982. They were high quality games, in some senses even superior to the original one, but there had many differences to the original in order to avoid a copyright infringement lawsuit.
Some years after, a few homebrew clones have risen. All the ones I know work for the VGA or MCGA graphics chips. So I wanted to fill the gap and make it compatible with the CGA and Hercules cards [NOTE: Hercules support temporarily removed ]. It was coded in 8086/88 assembly language and built with 1984's Microsoft Macro Assembler 3.0.
Video captured from 86Box. Emulated machine: IBM XT 5160 with a standard CGA card.
Requirements:
- MS-DOS/PC-DOS 2.0 or higher (maybe in the future I would convert it into a PC-Booter to avoid needing an operating system)
- IBM PC/XT, compatibles or higher
- A CGA or any compatible card
- Enough RAM to host the operating system plus a 9 Kb game
Download
Install instructions
File INVADERS.zip contains INVADERS.COM, which is the simplest type of MS-DOS/PC-DOS executable. You'll need a real DOS machine or, alternatively, an emulator such as DOSBox or 86Box to run it. It won't do it on the most recent versions of Windows, neither on Mac or Linux.
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