About DOSArchive
A son's project to preserve and share his father's programming work from a bygone era of computing.
The Programmer
In the early 1990s, Yasser Awad was a young programmer in Port Said, Egypt. Armed with a PC and a deep understanding of Assembly, C, and C++, he built software that solved real problems — from Arabic text rendering to digital circuit simulation, from virus removal to educational software.
His work spanned three prolific years from 1991 to 1993. During this time, he created a foundational Arabic graphics library (ARABART), won a programming competition, built an antivirus for a local virus, and crafted the software for his graduation project — a digital circuit simulator with custom hardware.
Each program tells a story: interview assignments that launched a career, boot screens traded for a first computer mouse, gifts created for doctors and government offices, and a commercial demo for a local hardware store. Together, they form a portrait of a programmer's life in early-90s Egypt.
The Archive
DOSArchive was built by Youssef Awad (DeadPackets) to preserve his father's work and make it accessible to anyone with a web browser.
Using js-dos — a DOSBox emulator compiled to WebAssembly — every program runs directly in the browser, exactly as it would have on a 1990s PC. No installation, no emulator setup. Just click and run.
These programs were written for DOS, an operating system that has been obsolete for decades. Without preservation efforts like this, they would exist only as forgotten files on aging floppy disks. Now they live on the web, accessible to anyone, anywhere.
Technical Details
Ready to explore? Browse the Archive