[HN Gopher] Doom on a modified rotary phone
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       Doom on a modified rotary phone
        
       Author : stankot
       Score  : 122 points
       Date   : 2024-09-25 04:29 UTC (18 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (tamulaitis.lt)
 (TXT) w3m dump (tamulaitis.lt)
        
       | erickhill wrote:
       | It's like when your joystick seems to be on the fritz, yet you
       | keep going for way too long before deciding to do something else
       | entirely.
        
         | throwup238 wrote:
         | The trick is to stop before you rub your joystick raw.
        
       | optimalsolver wrote:
       | Relevant SMBC:
       | 
       | https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-02-17
        
       | maffydub wrote:
       | Cool hack, but I thought this was actually going to be using
       | phone calls!
       | 
       | A few years back, I built TeleDoom
       | (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3-pje0PpfU) for the TADHack
       | hackathon (http://tadhack.com/).
       | 
       | This allowed you to play Doom by calling a phone number, which
       | connected via a VoIP trunk to an Asterisk server, which read your
       | button presses and translated them into actions in Doom, and then
       | streamed the result back over Twitch - trying to recreate the
       | vibe of 80s/90s TV phone-in games! (These were a thing on
       | Saturday morning TV in the UK.)
       | 
       | I never tested whether it would work with pulse-dial (i.e.
       | rotary) phones - I think that would come down to the VoIP trunk
       | provider!
       | 
       | This involved a VoIP trunk connected ot
        
         | lisper wrote:
         | > I thought this was actually going to be using phone calls!
         | 
         | Next year.
        
           | oneshtein wrote:
           | You can join army and practice Doom by phone or radio today!
        
         | bbarnett wrote:
         | _vibe of 80s /90s TV phone-in games!_
         | 
         | Well that brings back memories. I recall "Ranger Bob" in
         | Northern New York, Rochester I think, who used to host skits,
         | and other things around cartoons. And they had a TV game where
         | you'd yell 'POW' over and over to shoot things.
         | 
         | As a Canuck I'd watch US TV, and it's neat to know that the UK
         | had such cultural similarities too.
        
       | m4rc3lv wrote:
       | I liked the story about the hackathon. Too bad something like
       | this does not exist in my country.
        
         | Tepix wrote:
         | Go and start one!
        
       | stevage wrote:
       | It's cool, but I object to the misleading language. This isn't
       | playing Doom _on_ a phone, it 's playing Doom _using_ a phone as
       | a controller.
        
         | grujicd wrote:
         | Title of original article is "play Doom on rotary phone", not
         | "Doom on rotary phone", so it's a problem with a shortened HN
         | title.
         | 
         | When describing playing a game in Serbian we use "on a
         | controller" instead of "with a controller". It may be the same
         | in Lithuanian.
        
           | stevage wrote:
           | Sounds like more of a translation issue than a shortening
           | issue then.
        
       | Brajeshwar wrote:
       | Anyone know what electronic devices are left for Doom to conquer?
        
         | jansan wrote:
         | Not really electronic devices, but how about facades of high
         | rise buildings. I remember playing pong in Berlin on the
         | Blinkenlights installation[1], why not play doom on one of
         | those insane new Chinese skyscrapers?
         | 
         | Edit: I was also thinking about the Favicon, but this has been
         | done already: https://github.com/VidFerris/FaviconDoom
         | 
         | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blinkenlights
        
           | Brajeshwar wrote:
           | Let's remember this comment when this is done. I'm sure
           | someone will do it soon, even if it meant just controlling
           | the lights in the windows.
        
           | herodoturtle wrote:
           | Reminds me of the final scene in Hackers (1995).
           | 
           | "Beat that!"
           | 
           | Pure poetry.
        
         | ivan_gammel wrote:
         | Jet fighter helmets
         | 
         | BESM-6 mainframe (if there's any alive still)
         | 
         | Drilling control systems
         | 
         | Medical ultrasound scanners
         | 
         | Screenless, but... a 3D-printed level with remotely controlled
         | cockroaches.
         | 
         | (I'm looking forward to "challenge accepted" comments except
         | for the last two ones)
        
       | nullhole wrote:
       | Now I want to see a doom UI that does speech-to-mouse, so you
       | shout "turn left!", "move forward!", "fire!", etc, into a
       | telephone handset to run the game.
        
         | _joel wrote:
         | Reminds me of a 90's gameshow back here in the UK, Nightmare.
         | One player would be blindfolded whilst the other team member
         | tried to guide them around a grid avoiding being captured..
         | "Left, no, my left, no I mean your left, no!!!"|
         | 
         | Also https://www.voicebot.net/ or https://voiceattack.com/ is
         | what you might want, from a quick google. Add an rj11 to 3.5mm
         | connection, hey presto ;)
        
         | anthk wrote:
         | You can play text adventures over the phone with Asterisk, CMU-
         | sphinx and some tweaked up dfrotz.
         | 
         | Also, Frotz has been ported to more devices than Doom.
        
         | Tepix wrote:
         | There was a nice multiplayer game like that at the Expo 2000
         | with 6 players around a large table display using voice
         | commands. There's a picture still at https://www.unit-
         | design.de/de/projekte/daimler-chrysler-lab-...
        
       | Dwedit wrote:
       | Before anyone tries to bring it up, Doom never ran on a pregnancy
       | test. That was a case mod, no original parts were used besides
       | the plastic case.
        
         | bbarnett wrote:
         | While Doom many not have, I assure you many felt doom when
         | waiting for the result.
        
         | rob74 wrote:
         | Well, it was still more "on" the pregnancy test than "on" the
         | rotary phone - in this case, the phone is just a (really
         | _really_ bad) controller, Doom is still running on whatever the
         | phone is connected to.
        
         | tempodox wrote:
         | I shudder to think of the side effects if the test were
         | positive.
        
       | DaoVeles wrote:
       | Can we just appreciate the 3rd grader humor of the name.
       | 
       | Like a calculator app a friend made called the 'Crapulator'. It
       | lived up to the name but not in the same fashion as the
       | 'wrongulator'.
        
       | yapyap wrote:
       | Not really "on" the phone right? or did I misunderstand the clip,
       | cause it seemed like he was merely controlling it with the phone
        
       | Razengan wrote:
       | If you dream about Doom then Doom is running on you.
        
       | Tepix wrote:
       | Here's Doom running on a 64x40 display (not my hack), has anyone
       | gone lower than that?
       | 
       | https://www.tannr.com/2023/08/14/64x64-led-matrix-doom/
        
         | thih9 wrote:
         | This one is 32x48, 1 bit and based on gut bacteria:
         | https://www.engadget.com/heres-a-video-of-doom-running-on-gu...
        
         | 93po wrote:
         | if you count subpixels to achieve color, a monochrome 128x32
         | display is a lot less: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/09/doom-
         | kinda-running-on-a-pr... (as other comment pointed out, this is
         | just a shell of a pregnancy test being used)
        
       | burglins wrote:
       | The part about bluetooth is all too relatable. I'm wondering if
       | there is some other way to do wireless communication that is much
       | less annoying to set up?
        
       | tempodox wrote:
       | > Hello operator? I'd like to report a Cacodemon.
       | 
       | When you've got a demon-infested rotary phone, you know progress
       | has struck!
       | 
       | Already looking forward to the next improbable device to play
       | Doom on...
        
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       (page generated 2024-09-25 23:02 UTC)