I don’t want to derail your review thread, but perhaps have a look at this comment when you have some time. In fact, read the whole thread for some interesting viewpoints and recommendations.
Keep in mind that all the text adventures written in the golden age were written prior to Linux, Mac and Windows, so you need to be prepared to download emulators for 8-bit and 16-bit computers. For MS-DOS games you’ll need something like DOSBox.
I seem to recall one or two other threads that covered the same ground. I’ll see if I can find them.
EDIT: Found one. Try this comment, then read the whole thread.