Doom Runs in PDF, Toasters Obsolete

Doom has been successfully ported to unconventional devices like toasters, refrigerators, and virtually any gadget imaginable, making truly groundbreaking Doom ports increasingly rare. However, one high school student has remarkably managed to run Doom inside an actual PDF file – playable directly in your browser.

Sure, this version lacks minor details like "text" and "sound" – but when you can blast demons while procrastinating on your taxes, who really needs those?

The project comes from GitHub user ading2210, a high school student who was inspired by TetrisPDF, a recent PDF-based Tetris port. Determined to push boundaries further, they adapted one of gaming's most iconic shooters into a playable PDF for Chromium-based browsers.

ading2210 cleverly utilized JavaScript functionality supported by browser-based PDF readers to adapt Doom into PDF format. While the official PDF specification allows more advanced scripting, browser security restrictions imposed limitations. Still, they successfully delivered a functional Doom experience.

The JavaScript capabilities in PDFs enabled ading2210 to "perform any computation needed," resulting in an impressively recognizable port. Using six-color ASCII graphics to render sprites and environments, they created a playable version – albeit with noticeable input lag at 80ms per frame.

This PDF Doom might not replace your gaming console anytime soon, but witnessing the legendary shooter running inside a document format is astonishing, especially given its surprising playability.

TetrisPDF creator Thomas Rinsma acknowledged on Hacker News that he had also attempted a PDF Doom port but admitted ading2210's version exceeded his efforts in multiple ways.

While hardly ideal for first-time players, the sheer novelty of running Doom on absurd platforms – from documents to living organisms – continues to captivate tech enthusiasts worldwide.