The Weirdest Devices You Can Actually Play DOOM On

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Ignacio Weil

Gaming - October 28th 2025, 17:00 GMT+1

Doom on Volumetric Display — Volumetric Display

You’ve probably played *DOOM* on a flat screen – but how about in mid-air? A developer took a volumetric display, basically a spinning LED matrix that draws light points in three dimensions, and turned it into a literal holographic arena. Watching those pixelated corridors float in the air looks like witchcraft, or maybe just really creative coding. It’s more art installation than gaming rig, but there’s something mesmerizing about seeing the Doomguy move inside a 3D bubble of light. Sure, it’s noisy and impractical, but who cares? The future’s supposed to hum a little. | © Ancient

Cropped Doom on a Ultrasound Machine — Ultrasound Machine

Medical equipment on the list? Why not. In this case, an ultrasound scanner – a device meant to capture fetal images and body scans – got hacked to run *DOOM*. This isn’t just niche; it’s surreal. With some firmware fiddling, the device’s display and input were repurposed for demon-blasting instead of diagnostics. It prompts questions like “what if your scan room had a cheat code?” but also underscores how basically any computer-based system *could* host the game. From the clinical to the chaotic, *DOOM* doesn’t discriminate. | © Buy It Fix It

Pregnancy Test

At this point, it feels like running *DOOM* has become less about gaming and more about scientific chaos. The wildest example? A digital pregnancy test. Hardware hacker Foone Turing decided to gut one of these plastic sticks, replace its chip with a microcontroller and an OLED display, and – because why not – run *DOOM* on it. The result isn’t what you’d call “playable,” but that’s missing the point entirely. It’s a proof-of-concept turned cultural meme, proof that even a device meant for life-changing news can moonlight as a tiny demon-filled screen. If you ever wanted Hell in the palm of your hand, here it is. | © RDNE Stock project

Cropped Twitter — Twitter

Social media has its fair share of hellscapes, but this one’s intentional. Through a project called Tweet2Doom, players could actually control the game by replying to a bot with commands. Every tweet was an input – walk forward, shoot, open door – and the bot sent back a short video showing the result. It’s *DOOM* as performance art, played at the speed of social media lag and collective madness. Instead of quick reflexes, it rewards patience, humor, and a dash of masochism. Honestly, it might be the most accurate representation of Twitter ever made. | © Brett Jordan

Cropped pexels pixabay 144248 — Calculator and Potatoes

Running *DOOM* on a graphing calculator? Sure, that’s old news. Powering it with potatoes? Now we’re talking innovation. Someone wired enough spuds together to generate the small but steady voltage needed to keep a TI calculator alive – and then loaded *DOOM* onto it. It’s slow, dim, and deeply ridiculous, but also brilliant in a “science fair meets mad genius” kind of way. It proves that the question “Can it run *DOOM*?” is less about hardware specs and more about pure spite and curiosity. Also, bonus points for making lunch part of the experiment. | © Pixabay

Doom on lego brick — A Single LEGO Brick

It was only a matter of time before someone turned a toy brick into a murder simulator – a *DOOM* murder simulator, that is. Using a custom microcontroller, a miniature screen, and a 3D-printed shell shaped like a single oversized LEGO brick, one clever developer managed to get the game running inside everyone’s favorite foot-destroying toy. It’s tiny, blocky, and has all the processing power of a caffeinated snail, but somehow it works. The visuals flicker, the framerate stumbles, and every imp looks like a dot on caffeine – but that’s part of the appeal. A LEGO brick running *DOOM* feels like the ultimate tribute to both obsessive creativity and pixel-based nostalgia. It’s silly, brilliant, and perfectly on brand for a community that refuses to let a single thing – no matter how small – escape the reach of Hell. | © Ancient

ATM

Picture this: you walk up to a cash dispenser, punch in your PIN, and instead of cold cash you’re suddenly blasting imps. Yes, someone managed to install DOOM on an actual ATM-machine. The clever hack used the machine’s built-in buttons and keypad to emulate keyboard input and ran the old software on what is basically a dusty Windows PC in a bank cube. It turns an everyday chore into an absurd miner’s-lobby videogame experience. You don’t do this for the aesthetics – you do it for the moment when someone presses “Withdraw” and a rocket fires instead. In short: when the retail world meets retro FPS, weird greatness happens. | © mali maeder

Cropped Digital Camera — Digital Camera

Who needs a game console when your point-and-shoot camera can pull double duty? Hackers ported *DOOM* into a digital camera running DigitaOS (yes, the tiny operating system some Kodak models used) and suddenly you’re swapping zoom for ammo, shutter for shotgun. The screen is small, the buttons are awkward, and you’ll likely lose half your fingers – but think how ridiculous it is to see monsters on a device meant for birthdays and beach photos. It’s the ultimate “photo-studio slash demon-hunt” mashup we didn't know we needed. | © Pixabay

Treadmill

This one made me laugh because it literally mixes cardio with demons. Someone got *DOOM* running on a treadmill, of all things – yes, the machine you use for jogging became a surprise gaming platform. The story is they booted Linux from USB on the treadmill’s PC, loaded the game, and ran it in between speed settings. The idea of watching a Doomguy run down hallways on a screen while *you’re* physically jogging is delightfully absurd. It’s less about fps (frames per second) and more about “who forgot they were supposed to be at the gym?” And for SEO-pitching: “*DOOM* treadmill hack” is now a valid term. | © Reddit/Kreeator3

Cropped Mac Book Pro Touch Bar — MacBook Pro Touch Bar

Apple’s ultra-thin strip above the keyboard on a MacBook Pro is supposed to act like a dynamic control panel – not a full game screen. Naturally, someone ported DOOM onto that tiny, super-wide, very flat Touch Bar. With a resolution of something like 2170×60, every pixel counts and nothing works normally, but the hacker made it run anyway. Watching the classic shooter squashed into a horizontal ribbon is both ridiculous and oddly poetic. The gimmick alone nails the “Will it run *DOOM*?” crowd and we couldn't ask for more, could we? | © Adam Bell

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DOOM has long outgrown its status as just a game – it’s a rite of passage for hardware. Somewhere along the way, running DOOM stopped being about slaying demons and started being about proving that your toaster, fridge, or pregnancy test can, in fact, handle Hell itself. The result? A gloriously absurd collection of gadgets that no one should play DOOM on, but someone inevitably did.

From ATMs to potato-powered calculators, the community’s obsession with running DOOM everywhere has turned into a kind of geeky endurance sport. It’s the internet’s favorite science experiment – a mix of curiosity, chaos, and pure determination. So grab your BFG, because we’re diving into the strangest screens ever to host the world’s most unkillable game.