Earlier this week, a Twitter user going by the name GaryOderNichts took on the quirky task of hacking Nintendo’s Alarmo alarm clock to run the shareware version of Doom. Gary showcased the achievement with a video in a Twitter thread, making waves in the gaming community.
Gary shared more insights in the thread, noting a couple of technical hurdles. Currently, there’s no sound support, and the Doom shareware .wad file needs to be fiddled with — compressed and then uncompressed — to get around USB loader memory restrictions. The good news? If you’re intrigued and want to give it a go, there’s no need to tinker with your Alarmo physically. All the necessary project files are conveniently tucked away on GitHub for adventurous souls.
Curious how this came to be? Gary laid it all out in a detailed blog post. It started with a bit of sleuthing, cracking open an Alarmo and getting familiar with the components inside. The clock’s brains, an STM32H730ZBI6 Arm Cortex-M7 processor, fortunately, is something that’s well-documented. Gary then managed to hack the device and link it up with his Raspberry Pi.
He did need to do some intricate soldering and modifications to kick off the hack successfully, but thankfully, that level of fiddling around isn’t required for playing Doom via the USB. You just need the simplified version that’s up on GitHub.
As for gameplay, Doom on the Nintendo Alarmo utilizes a series of controls located on the clock: two buttons and a nifty touch dial. Aiming is handled through swiping, while shooting engages with the notification button on the lower right. Other controls might still be a mystery or went unused in the showcased video, which takes players through one of the game’s early levels.
It’s quite the twist to see a $99 Nintendo alarm clock being used this way, but Nintendo Alarmo isn’t the only quirky device to become a canvas for Doom enthusiasts. People have managed to get Doom running on unexpected gadgets like a smart lawnmower, the Raspberry Pi Pico RP2350 microcontroller, and an air hockey table. There’s even a crafty expansion card breathing new life into the ancient Commodore 64, giving it the needed boost to handle Doom.
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