TECH NEWS – id Software’s iconic first-person shooter has received yet another bizarre port, even though there was already no shortage of them.
We know, it is starting to feel a bit overdone: yet another developer running DOOM somewhere it clearly was not meant to be. We get it, we have already seen id Software’s genre-defining FPS operate on Lego bricks, inside a PDF, on bacteria, on roughly 45 kilograms of potatoes, on a pregnancy test, and even on a piano. It seemed impossible to top that. And yet, here come the Doombuds. Thanks to Sydney-based web developer Arin Sarkisian, DOOM now runs on a pair of earbuds, specifically the PineBuds Pro, which Sarkisian’s site describes as the only earbuds featuring open-source firmware.
The earbuds’ CPU is powerful enough to run DOOM with a few minor tweaks. According to the project description, Sarkisian clocked the processor up to 300 MHz and disabled low-power mode, providing more than enough performance to run the game, albeit at roughly 18 frames per second. DOOM itself also required adjustments so it could function within the earbuds’ limited RAM, but the website notes that several optimizations exist to reduce the game’s original 4 MB memory requirement. Although the earbuds can only store 4 MB of data, the 1.7 MB Squashware WAD is small enough to fit.
If you want to try this version, you do not need your own PineBuds. The Doombuds website includes an embedded Twitch stream and a virtual queue that lets anyone sign up to connect remotely to Sarkisian’s earbuds and play DOOM through their browser. Since the earbuds have no display, the stream effectively serves as the game’s screen. Further technical details can be found in the site’s “More Info” section, but it is safe to say this is a uniquely unconventional way to experience DOOM, even at a low frame rate.
If you would rather run DOOM on your own PineBuds, Sarkisian has shared the required instructions on GitHub.
Source: PCGamer, Doombuds, Pine64, GitHub, Squashware
