Where are we going in 2026?
Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2026 11:30 am
It has been quite a while since I posted in the news section. Personally I am very busy and do not have much time to work on the site other than to maintain the servers, files, users accounts and answer questions in the forums and on Discord. That said, the continued huge interest in this website and the thousands of people that use it every day continues to mean that I will keep the servers alive and updated as best as I can both manage and afford.
In recent weeks the numbers of visitors has increased by multiples and it is great to see people finding what they are searching for on the internet. Increasingly the web is filled with bot and AI generated content that is weak in substance and at worse just false. The plight of websites like this one, which is dedicated to preserving software for ageing computer and gaming systems is great with many authorities trying to control the right to actual valuable material across the web. I don't need to tell you all how the world wide web has changed since 2000 and sites like this are very rare indeed.
This site was started in 1999 with a simple view of collecting and offering as much old computer software to future users as possible. In many areas and for many systems, it now remains the only place where programs exist for some of these systems. It grew to include a huge back catalogue of emulators for every platform and in addition, along the way we collected box art, manuals and even game music.
At the start of 2026 I am planning to yet again upgrade the hardware and storage on the servers, I also hope to release some more roms over the year. I would in return ask everyone listening, to please donate as much and as often as you can. This site has no advertising, no click bait, no sponsors, no popups, no AI and no access to the user accounts. We have never used our members data for anything and we never will. All I need is to raise enough money every month to pay the siginificant bill for hosting, bandwidth and support.
If you are reading this and you are a web developer or think you can bring something to this historic site, maybe new graphics, new code, better layouts or better backend, please get in touch. I can not maintain this forever and the entire site needs brought up to date. If you want to leave some of your legacy on this site, please message me in the forums.I wish you all a happy new year and a prosperous 2026.
Hot Trout
Admin & Owner