Never mind a gaming keyboard how about a keycap that can run Doom?

Date:
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 11:11:59 +0000

Description:
Inventive ways to run Doom on weird hardware just witnessed an even stranger turn of events.

FULL STORY ======================================================================

Age-old first-person shooter Doom has, at this point, a history of being run on all sorts of improbable hardware, and the latest achievement is running
the game in a keycap.

Yes, you read that right. You may be scratching your head at this point a keycap, meaning the actual plastic key molds that make up the letters and characters on your keyboard cant do anything, right?

Right, but in this case, its a keycap with a tiny little computer board embedded inside.

Toms Hardware spotted that Bob from TheKeebProject took a Raspberry Pi
RP2040 chip, put it in a tiny custom-built PCB (printed circuit board), and inserted that inside a keycap (the slightly larger backspace key).

The tiny RP2040 is able to run Doom, albeit a heavily modified version of the game. In fact, it runs a fork of a Doom port for the RP2040 (by Graham Sanderson), one thats derived from Chocolate Doom (a minimalist port of the game). Analysis: Doom running on a chip that costs next to nothing

The best gaming keyboards have all sorts of perks, but weve never seen a game embedded on a dedicated chip inside a keycap before this is very definitely
a first, and an eye-opening one at that.

Remember, Doom is running on an RP2040 microcontroller with two CortexM0+
CPUs pitched at 133MHz and coupled with just 264K of RAM. This is a computer board that costs less than a buck, and it can run Doom with caveats, as mentioned above, but still.

Bob observes that the ported version of Doom keeps a lot of the original functionality, such as the resolution of 320 x 200, stereo sound, and network multiplayer is even in here.

Doubtless we'll continue to see the title that changed PC gaming forever running in all sorts of weird ways , because this has definitely become a thing (TM) with Doom in contemporary times. At this point, if Doom was
spotted running on a pair of nail clippers, we wouldnt be too shocked.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/never-mind-a-gaming-keyboard-how-about-a-k eycap-that-can-run-doom


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