With the advent of the winter holidays, the problem of decorating Christmas trees is more relevant than ever. One of the tech enthusiasts at SpritesMods got creative, creating a Christmas decoration that can run the old Doom shooter. The game can not only be launched, but also played quite normally.
Image Source: SpritesMods
Although today the launch of Doom on non-designated devices like smart bulbs turned into a kind of challenge, previously the ability to run this game on a computer was an important indicator. For example, Doom, released in 1993, did not run on the old Commodore 64. By that time, users began to build their own computers on the IBM PC platform, so the question is “can it run Doom?” was not at all idle.
Now the production of such “computers” has become a kind of game. This time we are talking regarding a Christmas tree toy made in the form of an IBM PC computer and equipped with a 0.96-inch display. To control the game character, the user can use a Bluetooth keyboard and a wireless mouse or a wireless gamepad. It is noteworthy that many of these “projects” show only demo videos, not allowing you to actually play. In this case, we are talking regarding a fully functional version.
To do this, I had to develop my own printed circuit board that fits into a 3D-printed case. The main “driving force” is the ESP32-C2-Wrover-02 microcontroller, which has slightly more memory than the standard ESP32. The case holds a Li-ion battery, an I2S audio amplifier and an LCD display contact, a speaker, a switch, and a USB charging port. The speaker is small, but quite capable of reproducing sound effects and musical accompaniment.
A full version of Doom would require too much memory, which of course the ESP32 does not have, so a version of the GBA Doom Port optimized to run with a small amount of memory was used. Additionally, proprietary audio files in .mus format have been converted to an open .imf format that can be played using the ESP32.
While it may not be the most compact device capable of running Doom, it is certainly the most “New Year’s Eve”. It is reported that it might have been possible to make it even more compact if it had not had to imitate the IBM PC case.
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