PC Booter

PC Booters are games that run on hardware compatible with IBM PCs, however they don't require a standard operating system such as DOS. Games would be delivered on standard media (originally 5¼ floppy, and later cartridges for the PCjr, 3½ floppies and CD-ROMs) that would be capable of "booting" the system directly into the game bypassing any operating system that might be installed on hard drives.

Booters allowed the developers to bypass restrictions in the delivered operating system (such as full memory access, or slower disk routines) that could be optimized for richer and faster game play. The downside was that booters might have compatibility issues with hardware and would have to provide their own drivers for non-standard video and audio hardware.