DOOM launched on E. coli

In 2023, graduate student Lauren Ramlan from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created a programmable “cellular” display and displayed DOOM on it. The speed and quality of the work leaves much to be desired, but the scientist has already found options on how to optimize the graphics (and at the same time proved that Doom runs on everything).

How we managed to run DOOM on E. coli

The essence of the project was to make E. coli cells work like pixels on a small display and use them to display a binary image. To do this, Lauren grew an E. coli plasmid on a small plate measuring 32*48 dots. There are genes in cells that allow you to start and suppress luminescence (and thereby form a picture).

Источник: 1-Bit Pixels Encoded in E. Coli for the Display of Interactive Digital Media

Unfortunately, FPS frames leave much to be desired. It takes 70 minutes to display one frame. It returns to its original state in 8 hours 20 minutes. That means it will take approximately 600 years to complete, assuming that the average time to complete DOOM on a computer is approximately 5 hours (at a frame rate of 35 frames per second).

But according to Lauren Ramlan, there are ways to optimize graphics. For example, accelerate the decrease in fluorescence. We advise you to learn more about the project read the article Ramlan. Here you can see codewhich a graduate student wrote to display images.

What else did DOOM run on?

Smart refrigerator

The game was shared by Richard Mallard. He downloaded Microsoft xCloud to his refrigerator display via Xbox Game Pass for Android on his refrigerator. And I started playing Doom Eternal on a gamepad.

The app works in portrait mode, but the aspect ratio is correct. Overall, a good option to keep yourself busy while you choose what to eat at night.

Pregnancy test

One of the hackers was able to run Doom on a digital pregnancy test. He replaced the original small monochrome display with a color OLED screen and added a microcontroller to run the game.

Karaoke machine

Not such a well-known story, but still worthy of attention. Accurate information about the car is difficult to find, but most likely it is a TJ Taijin Media Ziller B80, intended for Korean karaoke parlors.

Most likely, it is difficult to fully play on the device due to the location of the buttons.

45 kilograms of potatoes

Technically, the game used a TI-84 graphing calculator (which seems to be the only purpose these days). But the device worked on energy obtained from potatoes.

Blogger Equalo boiled and cut the tubers, then placed them in a warm and humid place so that they would become moldy. And connected a calculator with DOOM installed to them.

Toy chainsaw

The most brutal and one of the most effective, which has long become a cult favorite for fans of the game. Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible to run DOOM on a real chainsaw (it doesn’t have the computer components to run the game’s code or a screen to display the graphics). But you can use a toy one.

One fan replaced the Echo Junior Chainsaw’s internals with a Raspberry Pi Zero power supply with a 2.2-inch 320×240 LCD screen and a wireless receiver. And got this:

Тачбар 

Engineer Adam Bell launched DOOM on the Macbook Pro touchbar. The game is displayed in an aspect ratio of 100:10, all interface elements are displayed on the touch panel. Although it seems that it is still impossible to play on this.

A key

Optimus Maximus is a keyboard with a programmable screen on each key. By design, displays are needed to program buttons and change the layout.

But anything that has a screen can be adapted for DOOM. And enthusiasts launched the game in 48*48 resolution.

Microwave

If you’re bored of waiting for food to heat up, you can try run DOOM on the stovelike this gamer:

Oven runs on Android, so he was able to port the Doom APK using ADB:

~/Downloads/platform-tools $ ./adb connect 10.0.0.122:5555
=> connected to 10.0.0.122:5555
~/Downloads/platform-tools $ ./adb install original-doom-1-0-3-1-multi-android.apk
=> Performing Push Install
=> original-doom-1-0-3-1-multi-android.apk: 1 file pushed. 0.6 MB/s (8716284 bytes in 14.018s)
=> pkg: /data/local/tmp/original-doom-1-0-3-1-multi-android.apk
=> Success

Inside other games

Modders have been able to run DOOM inside Minecraft, The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, and inside DOOM itself. Yes, to repeat this, you will have to suffer with mods. But the fact itself…