Many game companies enter dick-swinging contests about how many teraflops their hardware has, how many CPU cores, blah blah blah…
The real question on everyone’s minds: how many potatoes does it take to run DOOM?
We spotted this one over at Geekologie, pointing out how tech YouTuber ‘Equalo‘ had way too much time on his hands, deciding to test out the original 1993 DOOM on a Raspberry Pi Zero powered solely by spuds.
As part of Equalo’s bizarre science experiment, he purchased 100 pounds of Russet potatoes and spent an entire day boiling them in preparation for becoming an organic battery.
Doing some quick maths to put things into perspective, 100 pounds is roughly 45 kilos, and two kilos of brushed potatoes go for $5.50 at an Aussie supermarket. This means Equalo would have bought 23 bags, totalling $126.50 — one hell of a commitment to the bit.
After slicing the boiled spuds, lining and hooking them up in his garage, Equalo discovered the Raspberry Pi Zero just wouldn’t work — even though there was theoretically enough power generated.
Unperturbed, he persisted.
One slight complication arose during the experiment: what happens when you leave hundreds of cooked and sliced potatoes in a garage for several days?
Mould city, baby.
Desperate to push on despite the ensuing grossness, Equalo finally succeeded by ditching the Raspberry Zero, running Doom on a TI-84 graphics calculator instead.
Equalo’s efforts come after Twitter user ‘Foone’ programmed DOOM to run on a digital pregnancy test, because there’s nothing like slaying demons while waiting to find out if you got knocked up.
Even 2020’s Doom Eternal is getting some weird gadget love. Content creator Richard Mallard posted a video on Instagram showing the game playing on his Samsung smart fridge via xCloud — which is proving to be easier than running the cloud-based service on an Apple device.
At least the fridge shouldn’t have any overheating issues?
Thank you to these brave souls, boldly experimenting in the field so we don’t have to.
Chris is an award-nominated writer based in Adelaide who specialises in covering video games and technology. He loves Donkey Kong Country, sport, and cats. The Last Jedi is the best one, no questions asked.
