It's now a long-running tradition in the world of video games to try and get Doom, the 1993 PC classic, up and running on bizarre hardware. Tech-minded gamers have gotten the FPS title working on everything from a digital camera screen to a calculator, and now a commercial kitchen appliance can be added to the massive list of Doom machines.
Getting Doom running on a TI-84 graphics calculator is one thing, but the YouTube channel This Does Not Compute ran into a whole slew of problems when trying to make an Oasys iPad (a machine that is related to Apple's touchscreen device in exactly zero ways) run the retro shooter. The Oasys iPad is a display system in commercial kitchens and restaurants, and saying the device was not designed to run a video game is an understatement.
For starters, Doom was originally programmed to run in MS-DOS, the operating system that runs other PC games from the era like the fan favorite Commander Keen. The Oasys iPad runs on a platform called X-DOS, however, so the first thing This Does Not Compute had to do was install an MS-DOS-based operating system. They started by trying to run FREE-DOS, Windows 98, and Windows XP, but all systems came with a unique set of challenges. Finally, they got MS-DOS version 6.22 running, at which point they were able to install a shareware copy of the classic shooter.
Unfortunately, because the Oasys iPad has no speakers or speaker port, the soundtrack is completely missing, however This Does Not Compute was able to get sound effects running through the internal PC speaker on the unit. Also, unlike how Doom performs when running on a digital camera, the Oasys iPad handles the game impressively well. The frame rate is very respectable and the resolution is high enough that all objects and enemies are clear. In general, the Oasys iPad seems like it's not a bad system at all for any Doom-related needs.
This Does Not Compute does state that further optimization could be done in order to get the game running even better on the kitchen appliance, and while it's unclear whether they intend to do any more tinkering on their own system, they've left instructions and resources in the video's description on YouTube for anyone who might have their own Oasys iPad lying around. Elsewhere in the video it is revealed that one of the companies employing the Oasys device is Starbucks, so any tech-minded baristas out there might just be able to install an original or modded copy of Doom on their cash register to play during the slower shifts.
For anyone who doesn't have access to an Oasys iPad, other retro-gaming entrepreneurs have successfully gotten Doom running on a Pioneer DJ Turntable and have calculated that the game could be run by using 16 billion crabs as a computer. In fact, there's an entire subreddit called itrunsdoom dedicated to getting Doom installed on the strangest hardware possible.