It runs Doom

Lore & Background

An early example of porting Doom to unconventional platforms was a Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) port developed by Sculptured Software. The SNES lacked a 32-bit processor, running on a 16-bit chip instead. In order for the SNES to run Doom, it required the Super FX expansion chip, a coprocessor that helped run 3D games like Star Fox and Yoshi's Island. According to the port's head programmer Randy Linden, neither the Super FX chip nor the development kit were available to Sculptured Software at the time when the port was being made, so Linden had to compromise. Linden used a 'hacked-up' Star Fox cartridge to get access to the Super FX chip and wrote his own engine for the port, which he dubbed the Reality Engine.

In 1997, the source code for Doom was released under a non-commercial license before being officially released in 1999 under the GNU General Public License. The source code came from an unofficial Linux port, which was created by id Software programmer Dave Taylor. According to another id programmer, John Carmack, the code is only designed to run on Linux, but is portable enough to be modified to run on 'just about any' other device. Following the source release, the Doom community would start to create modified versions of the engine called source ports, expanding the technical capabilities of the engine, and enabling new forms of modding. Some of these modified versions were also used to port the game to other devices.

Reader's Guide

The 'It runs Doom' meme has become a cultural benchmark for technological ingenuity and hacking, demonstrating the portability of the Doom engine across a vast range of devices. Its significance lies in how it showcases the creativity of hobbyists and researchers, who have adapted the game to platforms as diverse as graphing calculators, ATMs, John Deere tractors, and even E. coli bacteria. The meme's persistence is fueled by the 1997 release of Doom's source code, which allowed developers to create source ports like Chocolate Doom and PrBoom, making the game adaptable to nearly any system. Notable examples include a 2011 port to a graphing calculator, a 2014 installation on an ATM running Windows XP, and a 2022 jailbreak of a John Deere tractor to play a farm-themed version. In 2024, researchers displayed Doom on a 32x48 1-bit display made from E. coli bacteria, though it would take 600 years to play fully. That same year, Doom demo files were played back on a cube satellite in Earth orbit. In 2026, human brain cells controlled a version of Doom via a biological computer. The meme's legacy is its role in highlighting the right to repair movement, as seen with the John Deere tractor jailbreak, and its enduring appeal as a test of technical limits.

Did You Know?

• The earliest example of Doom being ported to a calculator was in February 2011, when users from the Omnimaga forums released a beta build.
• In October 2020, YouTube user Equalo ran Doom on a graphing calculator powered by 100 pounds of boiled, aging potatoes.
• In 2024, Lauren Ramlan made a 32x48 1-bit display using E. coli bacteria to display Doom, with each frame taking 70 minutes to illuminate.
• In 2026, Australian company Cortical Labs demonstrated human brain cells controlling a copyright-free version of Doom called Freedoom.