A dedicated fan managed to turn a rotary phone into a “number pad”, and later used the same phone as a controller to play classic DOOM. The classic experiences of DOOM They have starred in several interesting experiments, one of which involved a neuroscientist training rats to play DOOM 2 in virtual reality.
Interestingly, fans keep finding new ways to run the shooter series. A music mod allows the first DOOM entry to be played on a piano, for example. Even an ultrasound scanner can bring the id Software classic from 1993 to life. Additionally, ATMs and graphing calculators have been used to drive the Doom Slayer through the demons. And it seems that the challenge to control DOOM with the strangest devices it will not soon come to an end. In fact, the latest of these projects may be among the most intriguing yet.
And it is that the reddit user, g_calgary, shared images of a project in which he used an ‘arduino pro micro’ to turn a rotary phone into a functional numeric keypad. Another reddit user suggested that the same program be used to play the classic DOOM. g_calgary accepted the challenge and readjusted the rotary phone keys to DOOM as follows: 1 is translated into ctrl, 2 into left arrow, 3 into right arrow, 4 into up arrow, 5 into down arrow and 6 into space bar. G-calgary posted a demo on reddit, describing the creation as a “horrible experience” that they don’t recommend.
Using the rotary phone as a control understandably seems to suffer from a bit of a lag on entry. Given the way the old phone is controlled, DOOM it moves a lot slower when controlled this way, too. Therefore, this will not be the most exciting way to experience the beloved shooter. However, the fact that someone made it work deserves applause.
After a long hiatus, DOOM came back in 2016 with a modern reboot that paid homage to the past, but stayed in the present in terms of design. Id Software followed the acclaimed reintroduction of the franchise with the 2020 release of DOOM Eternal, which continued to receive support throughout 2021.