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 These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.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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Silicon Dreams

DOS19873.6/5 Level 9 Computing
Skullduggery: Adventures in Horror

DOS19863.1/5
Slash'Em

Windows XP/98/95Linux1997freeware4.2/5
Sleuth: A Murder Mystery

DOS1983freeware4.2/5 Norland Software
Softporn Adventure

DOS1981freewareNSFW4/5 Sierra On-Line
Sorcerer

DOS19844.1/5 Infocom
Spellbreaker

DOS19853.9/5 Infocom
SRAM

DOS19873.5/5 ERE Informatique
Star Fleet 1: The War Begins

DOSMac19853.7/5 Interstel Corporation
Star Fleet 2: Krellan Commander

DOS19894.5/5 Interstel Corporation
Star Saga: One - Beyond the Boundary

DOS19873.6/5 Masterplay Publishing Corporation
Star Saga: Two - The Clathran Menace

DOS19893.9/5 Masterplay Publishing Corporation
Star Trek: First Contact

DOS19883.5/5 Simon & Schuster Interactive
Star Trek: the Kobayashi alternative

DOS19854/5 Micromosaics
Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy

DOSMac19864/5 TRANS Fiction Systems
Starcross

DOS19823.7/5 Infocom
Stationfall

DOS19873.9/5 Infocom
Super ZZT

DOS19923.3/5 Epic MegaGames
Supernova

DOS1987freeware3.5/5 Apogee Software
Suspect

DOS19844.1/5 Infocom
Suspended

DOS19833.8/5 Infocom
Taipan for Windows

Windows XP/98/952002freeware3.7/5
Temple of Kroz

DOS1990freeware3.8/5 Apogee Software
The Astronomy Quiz

DOS19883.2/5 Softdisk Publishing
The Final Crusade of Kroz

DOS1990freeware3.7/5 Apogee Software
The Golden Fleece

DOS19894/5
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

DOSMac1984freeware4.2/5 Infocom

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a humorous free text adventure game based on the novel of the same name written by Douglas Adams (if you never read it, shame on you!). The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was designed by Douglas Adams himself and interactive fiction god Steve Eric Meretzky, it was released by Infocom in 1984 for DOS and for...
The Lurking Horror

DOS19874.1/5 Infocom
The mist

DOS19853.9/5 Angelsoft
The patcher 6.1

DOS19934.2/5