Alone in the Dark and the Mystery of HIMEM.SYS

Let’s take a trip back to 1992. I was 9 years old, living in Poland, and the not-so-proud owner of a PC 286. It had a whopping 1MB of RAM, no hard drive, and a monochromatic screen. To make matters worse, my father—who was a coal miner and bought the PC with the best intentions—had no idea that his well-meaning investment was lightyears behind my neighbor’s Amiga. And let’s be real, back then, an Amiga was practically a spaceship compared to what I had.

Now, to my credit (or maybe to my father’s optimism), I did have a VGA graphics card—top of the range for its time. But what’s the point when you’re stuck with a black-and-white screen? No hard drive, no sound card, and no internet to figure things out. Just me, my PC, and a whole lot of trial and error.

The Underground Gaming Scene in Poland

Growing up in Poland in the early ‘90s, getting your hands on PC titles wasn’t exactly easy. But we had these underground markets where you could sometimes find gems if you knew where to look. That’s where I found Alone in the Dark.

Man, what a game. Even though I was way too young for horror movies, I loved them. And Alone in the Dark? That was a true survival horror—tense, atmospheric, and terrifying in all the right ways. This wasn’t just some action game; it was an experience. The problem? I couldn’t get it to run.

The HIMEM.SYS Mystery

Now, imagine being 9 years old, knowing barely any English beyond what school taught me, and staring at a screen that just refused to launch my dream game. No Google. No forums. Just DOS commands, error messages, and pure determination.

Somehow—I honestly couldn’t tell you how—I figured out that I needed to add the HIMEM.SYS driver via the CONFIG.SYS file to get the game to run. I must have pieced it together from trial and error, reading the manual (probably in broken English), or some stroke of dumb luck. But one way or another, I got it working. And when that intro sequence started rolling? Pure magic.

Why This Moment Stuck With Me

This was my first real troubleshooting victory—the moment I realized that solving technical problems could be just as rewarding as playing the game itself. And let’s be honest, there was something special about gaming back then. Every game felt like a puzzle, not just on-screen but in real life. Sometimes, the biggest challenge was just getting the damn thing to run.

Looking back, it’s kind of hilarious that my first real IT challenge was hacking my own PC to play a horror game I was too young for. But hey, that’s retro gaming for you.

Retro Gaming Today: The Tinkering Lives On

Fast forward to today, and while technology has come a long way, the appeal of troubleshooting never really left me. The products I sell now come with literally 20,000+ games preloaded. And while 99% of them work straight out of the box, some require a bit of tinkering with ROMs, emulation cores, and settings to get just right. But honestly? That’s half the fun.

I often spend more time troubleshooting than actually playing—and I love it. If a game runs perfectly, I’ll go out of my way to find something else to tweak. And for those who love the retro gaming experience, adding your own ROMs, configuring settings, and perfecting your collection is part of the joy. It’s not just about playing the classics—it’s about rediscovering them in the way that suits you best.

Your Turn – What’s Your Proudest Retro Troubleshooting Moment?

I know I’m not the only one who had to pull some tech wizardry just to get a game to work. What’s your best retro troubleshooting moment? Whether it was tweaking autoexec.bat, swapping floppy disks like a madman, or figuring out some obscure setting, drop your story in the comments—I’d love to hear it!

"...these graphics can never get any better!" Dawid, 1992