The terms you are looking for are “keygen” and “crack”.

serials.ws was the site I used way back in the day. Might be on archive.org.

this is why you write the key on a sharpie on the disc

Back in the day, every disc or software needed its own key, or you’d search for a crack that infected your computer with malware.

There’s no universal way to bypass keys. Try the wayback machine, perhaps, if you’re really into self-flagellation.

I mean the stuff is probably archived somewhere online and possibly already ready to just download or run but that’s no fun and I am also curious.

If you like a challenge you could try to write your own crack. At some point in the installer's code there must be a condition that goes "If entered serial is correct, jump to installation, otherwise jump to error message.". On x86 machines a "jump if" is represented by the byte 0x74, whereas "jump if not" is 0x75. In the most simple scenario all you need to do is find the exact byte representing that jump and replace it with its opposite. The installer will then let you proceed if you enter any invalid serial.

At minimum you'd need a disassembler (ideally one that lets you run the installer in some kind of debug mode), and a hex editor. Be warned that my knowledge was very limited back then and has likely deteriorated even more since. Also it can quickly get much more complicated if the installer comes with any form of tamper protection or obfuscation.

25 years ago when I was a teenager I had a terrible problem with CD cases getting broken and thrown away. I would have those CD stack cases filled with loose random CDs and no keys. I believe it is still around but GameCopyWorld (just google it) is how I was forced to install.

Honestly, I should have just taped paper on the CD top with the keys, but I was a kid and didn't think very far down the line.

GameCopyWorld is very web 1.0 but it's still around if you need No CD cracks.

Serial keys...hmmm. That's a good question. serials.ws doesn't exist anymore.

I guess these days you'd look up a game on archive.org and look for a text file bundled into the release that has a key or two.

Fuck. That actually annoys me. We should have a serial / keygen archival website.

Just hop on astalavista.box.sk and search!