About Abandonware

Why this shop exists

Abandonware is a small, independent merch shop for one narrow slice of computing history: the software, screensavers, games and web culture of the 1990s and early 2000s. The beige tower era. The monitor that took a second to warm up. The modem that made that sound.

Most of what we make things for is, in one sense or another, genuinely abandoned — software whose publisher folded, got acquired, or simply moved on. Berkeley Systems' After Dark. Netscape Navigator. Kid Pix. SkiFree. Encarta '95. Bubble Ghost. The Microsoft Entertainment Pack. GeoCities. Winamp. WebTV. Rodent's Revenge. Chip's Challenge. MECC, and the whole school computer lab that came with it.

Nobody is going to reissue any of it. This shop is a small monument instead.

Who runs this

Hi — I'm Steve. I'm based in Michigan, and I've been running Abandonware since January 2024.

I do the design work myself, and I'm picky about what gets made. A piece of software earns a place here if it clears three bars: it was genuinely loved by a real community at the time, it is effectively orphaned now, and its visual language is strong enough to survive the trip onto a hat, a tee, a mug or a sticker. Plenty of things I have real affection for fail that third test.

Every product page carries a short, dated explanation of what the software actually was and who made it — who wrote SkiFree, what year Bubble Ghost came out, which company published Rodent's Revenge. That research is part of the product.

What makes this different from the big marketplaces

The large print-on-demand marketplaces are firehoses: millions of designs, mostly the same twenty jokes in different fonts, uploaded in bulk by sellers who have never opened the software they are referencing. That is a legitimate business. It just isn't this one.

Abandonware is a small, deliberately curated catalogue. Every design is a choice someone made on purpose. When you buy a Netscape Navigator dad hat here, you are buying from one small US shop, not from a bulk uploader who found "netscape" in a keyword tool.

How the products get made

  • Made to order. Nothing sits in a warehouse. Your item is produced after you buy it, which is why it takes a few days longer to arrive than something pulled off a shelf — and why almost nothing gets thrown away.
  • Real blanks. Comfort Colors 1717 on the heavyweight tees, 100% chino cotton twill and cotton corduroy on the hats, durable holographic vinyl on the stickers.
  • Some pieces are made differently. The "It's Now Safe To Turn Off Your Computer" tee by artist Nicole Ruggiero is a limited run, screenprinted locally in Seattle.

Get in touch

Wholesale, custom runs and press: use the contact form and say what you're after. And if there's a piece of dead software you think belongs here, tell me.

E-mail us!