[HN Gopher] Porting Doom to a USB Bluetooth Dongle
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Porting Doom to a USB Bluetooth Dongle
        
       Author : smirutrandola
       Score  : 116 points
       Date   : 2021-11-15 10:38 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (next-hack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (next-hack.com)
        
       | moffkalast wrote:
       | > the game was running at 34.5 fps
       | 
       | It can run Doom at 35 fps, but can't stream a good bluetooth
       | signal to headphones more than 5 m away smh.
        
         | maxwelljoslyn wrote:
         | Bluetooth devices are in such a sad state :^(
        
         | audunw wrote:
         | Have you tried a Bluetooth 5 LE headphone? It's a completely
         | different radio and protocol from previous generation Bluetooth
         | headphones. I don't know if there are any in the market yet.
         | There certainly isn't any based on nRF5340 yet.
         | 
         | I don't know if the range will be better, but latency and
         | pairing process should be much better.
        
       | mcotocel wrote:
       | Interesting how a modern USB Bluetooth dongle is more powerful
       | than a proper computer from 40 years ago, and much smaller as
       | well.
        
         | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
         | Also interesting is how, given that, we still have slow and
         | unresponsive software that often isn't doing much more than we
         | did 40 years ago.
        
           | fhood wrote:
           | We use additional compute power to enable frameworks and
           | abstractions that allow code to be written faster. Sure it's
           | bloated but at least there _is_ a reason.
        
             | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
             | Is code actually being written faster? Or with fewer
             | people? I am not convinced that it is.
        
         | jagger27 wrote:
         | Apples USB-C charging bricks are quite capable on their own.
         | The new 140W brick uses a 32-bit Arm Cortex-M0 STM32G0-series
         | microcontroller with 36K RAM, 128K flash ROM, running at 64MHz.
         | 
         | Source: 9:45 minute mark of the video in this article:
         | https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/29/teardown-shows-details-of-app...
        
         | Arrath wrote:
         | Reminds me of the article on HN some months ago where someone
         | got a form of Lunix running on the controller SoC within a hard
         | drive. Incredible what power is being packed into other
         | devices, these days.
        
           | luke2m wrote:
           | https://adequacy-
           | org.vercel.app/public/stories/2001.12.2.420...
        
             | Arrath wrote:
             | This feels like a rabbit hole, my my.
        
             | jjice wrote:
             | Satirical news/blog stories are my favorite part of the old
             | internet. Really with they would have a comeback. The long
             | form written humor is a lot more fun to me than something
             | like Twitter.
        
           | awesomepeter wrote:
           | Why lunix? I assume you mean Linux, I've seen it written this
           | way a few times and am wondering where it comes from
        
             | pjmlp wrote:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LUnix
        
             | Arrath wrote:
             | Typo, nothing more nothing less.
        
           | PeterisP wrote:
           | http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack perhaps, with the
           | backdoor that adds an extra user when /etc/shadow is read
           | from the drive?
        
             | Arrath wrote:
             | That's the one I was thinking of!
        
       | humanistbot wrote:
       | Now this is what I come to HN for. A true hack in the classic
       | sense of the term. An absurd attempt to do something with
       | technology that its designers had absolutely no intention of
       | supporting, and learning quite a bit about it in the process.
       | Bravo!
        
         | WalterBright wrote:
         | This is also why I embrace Open Source! If Doom was closed
         | source, none of this would happen.
        
       | askl wrote:
       | So maybe the PineTime watch[1] could also run doom, it uses
       | almost the same SoC except with less RAM and flash
       | 
       | [1] https://pine64.com/product/pinetime-smartwatch-sealed/
        
         | ece wrote:
         | I'm here for this hack.
        
         | audunw wrote:
         | There's probably not enough RAM. (64kB vs 256kB for the
         | nRF52840). Certainly not for the full resolution of the display
         | with color. But I'm sure a more basic port would be possible.
        
       | numpad0 wrote:
       | > nRF52840
       | 
       | That's not a standard Bluetooth dongle, that's the go-to chip
       | that runs a lot of smartwatches, tags, and health devices. Has
       | community Arduino support as well.
        
         | sodality2 wrote:
         | Also the OpenSK project from Google uses them - build-your-own
         | FIDO2 token :D
        
       | srvmshr wrote:
       | Doom is becoming the NetBSD of computer games. People managed to
       | port it everywhere
        
         | xook wrote:
         | I would ask "Is there a BSDoom?" but this[0] might qualify.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.cs.unm.edu/~dlchao/flake/doom/
        
         | LukeShu wrote:
         | I'm pretty sure Doom de-throned NetBSD at least a decade ago.
        
       | smirutrandola wrote:
       | Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUsfgSCRpG0
       | 
       | These are the same guys of the doom port to the ikea lamp (see
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27498789).
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | grae_QED wrote:
       | At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if some one ported doom to
       | their electric toothbrush.
        
         | carl_dr wrote:
         | Have you seen Doom on a pregnancy test?
         | 
         | https://twitter.com/foone/status/1302820468819288066?s=21
        
           | grae_QED wrote:
           | hah! no, but, real or not, that's hilarious!
        
           | benbristow wrote:
           | It's not actually running on the original hardware, it's
           | running on external hardware which is controlling the display
           | 
           | https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1302913385764458498
        
           | detaro wrote:
           | where "on a pregnancy test" means "they ripped out the
           | original hardware from a pregnancy test and put in a new
           | controller and new display, which then shows Doom"
        
             | marlone93 wrote:
             | It's even simpler than this. On the "pregnancy test" Doom
             | is actually running on a pc and the scaled video is sent
             | via usb to the replaced microcontroller which drives the
             | replaced display. Source:
             | https://mobile.twitter.com/Foone/status/1302834931421175809
        
         | Minor49er wrote:
         | It might be hard to play, but I'm confident I could work my way
         | up from Knee-Deep in the Fluoride through Thy Brush Consumed on
         | a single tube of paste
        
           | krylon wrote:
           | There Will Be Toothpaste
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-11-16 23:01 UTC)