Text-based games: ASCII, etc.

In the past, lots of games used ASCII characters (text) to represent the game world. These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.
A few genres traditionally linked to the beautiful world of ascii characters still survives: roguelikes (nethack, angband, etc.) and interactive fiction, for example.

Most popular text-based games

Norton Commander 5.5

applicationDOS

Borland Turbo Basic 1.0

applicationDOS

Zork I: The Great Underground Empire

adventureDOS

Text-based games

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Lancelot

DOS19884/5 Level 9 Computing
Larn

DOS1986freeware4/5
Lawn Mower

DOS19874/5
Leather Goddesses of Phobos

DOS19864.1/5 Infocom
Legend of the Red Dragon

DOS19893.5/5 Robinson Technologies
LHA

DOS19884.4/5
Lost Adventures of Kroz

DOS1990freeware3.3/5 Apogee Software
Magnetic Scrolls Collection

DOS19914/5 Magnetic Scrolls

Magnetic Scrolls was one of the finest developer companies dedicated to Interactive Fiction. The Magnetic Scrolls Collection is a trilogy of Magnenic Scrolls adventures remade using the Wonderland engine: Fish!, Corruption, The Guild of Thieves. The new window-based interface made text-adventuring easy even for gamers not used to a text-only interf...
Meteors

DOS19893.6/5 Apogee Software
Mickey's Space Adventure

DOS19853.4/5 Sierra On-Line
Midway Campaign

DOS19834/5 Microcomputer Games Inc.
Mind Mirror

DOS19863.6/5
Mindshadow

DOSMac19853.6/5 Interplay Productions
Mindwheel

DOS19853.2/5 Synapse Software
Mission: Mainframe

DOS19873.8/5
Mo'Slo

DOS1990protected4.1/5 Dr.David's Super Crispy Software

The previous file hosted here was put online by mistake (it was the deluxe version, not the basic one). Copyright holders kindly allowed Abandonware DOS to link directly to their website where you can buy the deluxe version of Mo'Slo.
Monopoly

DOS19854/5
Monopoly (Adam Stevens)

DOS19983.9/5
Moonmist

DOS19863.8/5 Infocom
Moria

DOS1992freeware3.9/5
Murder by the Dozen

DOS19832.7/5 BrainBank
Myth

DOS19894.1/5 Magnetic Scrolls
NetHack

DOS1987freeware3.7/5
NewsMaster

DOS19863/5
Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It

DOS19873.4/5 Infocom
Norton Commander 1.0

DOS19863.5/5 Peter Norton Computing

Norton Commander was a file manager and editor application released by Peter Norton Computing for DOS. Norton Commander used a text-based user interface with side-by-side panels and featured copy, delete, editing and preview any kind of file easily: it was an improvement over the command-line only MS-DOS interface. Norton Commander 1.0 was fir...
Norton Commander 5.5

DOS19984.2/5 Peter Norton Computing

Norton Commander was one of the most popular file manager applications ever released for MS DOS. Its clever side-by-side windows interface and the ease of use allowed DOS users to copy, delete, move and preview any kind of file without the hassle of typing every command by hand. Norton Commander was first released in 1986, but the latest and final ...
Norton Desktop

DOS19923.9/5 Peter Norton Computing
Norton Editor 2

DOS19904.3/5 Peter Norton Computing
Omega

DOSLinux1988freeware3.8/5