Nintendo’s new Alarmo, a video game-inspired alarm clock that wakes you up with Super Mario music, has already reached the ultimate evolutionary step of all tech gadgets: It can run “Doom.”
Youtuber GaryOderNichts figured out how to load the iconic 1993 first-person shooter (in which your character slaughters hordes of demons with shotguns and chain saws) onto the clock using just a USB — no other modifications necessary.
Alarmo’s screen and single big button make this version of “Doom” playable. It’s hardly ideal — but that’s not the point.
The source code for “Doom” was released in the ‘90s, allowing programmers to do all sorts of wacky stuff and creating a long-running tech meme about whether certain gadgets can be rigged to run the game.
- With modifications, people have played “Doom” on a point-of-sale terminal, an ATM, and even a single Lego brick.
- For many devices running versions of Windows — like a Kodak Picture Kiosk, Redbox machine, or oscilloscope — installing “Doom” is a breeze.
There are controversies…
… among the “It runs Doom” community, mostly centered around things that aren’t actually running “Doom.”
- Unlike the Alarmo mod, this modded pregnancy test, this French pharmacy sign, and the otherwise useless MacBook Pro Touch Bar run the game on traditional hardware and simply display it in a weird way.
- But don’t act like “Doom” rendered by MS Paint, on a building, and using audio signals aren’t rad.
So if you need something to work on today, maybe see if you can get “Doom” running on your office phone.
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