Making “Doom” playable on more and more devices is a well-recognized hobbyist and nerd hobby. On the calculator, the fitness bike, on the microcontroller and the toaster: “Doom” has already been made to run everywhere. Finally someone has thought of the good old Teletext: The programmer “lukneu” has enabled code on Github that makes Doom run on Teletext.
“Doom” does not run directly on the television, but on an external device. Its video output is then translated into teletext data and streamed to a compatible television via TCP. Anyone who does not have a suitable television at hand can also display the teletext stream on their PC screen, writes lukneu on Github. A video shows what it looks like.
Optional remote control
It shows how “Doom” in teletext is controlled with a remote control. This is an optional step: Because the game runs on an external device (in this case a Linux system), all common input devices can be used there for control. lukneu has therefore used a FLIRC adapter on its computer in order to couple the infrared signals from the remote control buttons to keystrokes.
“Doom” is shown on the TV with lukneu’s program on page 100. Graphic splendor is not to be expected: in the Level 1 version released in 1976, each page of teletext can display 25 lines with 40 characters each, which in turn are divided into 2×3 regions. In practice, a maximum of 3900 pixels remain for rendering (78×50), explains lukneu on Github – considerably less than the 64,000 pixels (300×200) of the original “Doom”. In fact, the teletext “Doom” consists primarily of black and white blocks, but the status bar is really legible. According to lukneu, the frame rate varies from device to device – an LG TV built in 2015 only managed 3 frames per second, while a much older Tunai model displayed “Doom” with over 30 FPS in teletext.
There are countless ports of the legendary first-person shooter online, which originally came onto the market in 1993 and was indexed in Germany until 2011. This offers an overview of the countless craft projects related to Doom It runs Doom Blog.
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