Porting Doom to a USB Bluetooth Dongle

https://next-hack.com/index.php/2021/11/13/porting-doom-to-an-nrf52840-based-usb-bluetooth-le-dongle/

by smirutrandola • 5 years ago

184 57 5 years ago

next-hack.com

smirutrandola• 5 years ago

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUsfgSCRpG0

These are the same guys of the doom port to the ikea lamp (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27498789).

mcotocel• 5 years ago

Interesting how a modern USB Bluetooth dongle is more powerful than a proper computer from 40 years ago, and much smaller as well.

Arrath4• 5 years ago

Reminds me of the article on HN some months ago where someone got a form of Lunix running on the controller SoC within a hard drive. Incredible what power is being packed into other devices, these days.

luke2m• 5 years ago

https://adequacy-org.vercel.app/public/stories/2001.12.2.420...

PeterisP• 5 years ago

http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack perhaps, with the backdoor that adds an extra user when /etc/shadow is read from the drive?

awesomepeter• 5 years ago

Why lunix? I assume you mean Linux, I've seen it written this way a few times and am wondering where it comes from

AnIdiotOnTheNet2• 5 years ago

Also interesting is how, given that, we still have slow and unresponsive software that often isn't doing much more than we did 40 years ago.

fhood2• 5 years ago

We use additional compute power to enable frameworks and abstractions that allow code to be written faster. Sure it's bloated but at least there is a reason.

jagger272• 5 years ago

Apples USB-C charging bricks are quite capable on their own. The new 140W brick uses a 32-bit Arm Cortex-M0 STM32G0-series microcontroller with 36K RAM, 128K flash ROM, running at 64MHz.

Source: 9:45 minute mark of the video in this article: https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/29/teardown-shows-details-of-app...

philistine• 5 years ago

At some point Apple is going to start putting S-series chip in those chargers.

bombela• 5 years ago

What can you possibly do to need such computing power for a switching power supply... I wonder

mavhc• 5 years ago

Have you tried turning your charger off and on again?

8fingerlouie• 5 years ago

I worked on the kernel parts of the pre smart phones.

When GSM was invented, there was real doubt that it might not be possible to meet the very specific timing needs on the hardware that was available at the time.

I remember when we had to integrate Bluetooth into our 16 bit, 8Mhz Infineon E-gold platform. We had ~20 people working on it for 2 years.

elurg• 5 years ago

Doom is less that 30 years old and was resource-intensive for the time.

askl• 5 years ago

So maybe the PineTime watch[1] could also run doom, it uses almost the same SoC except with less RAM and flash

[1] https://pine64.com/product/pinetime-smartwatch-sealed/

ece• 5 years ago

I'm here for this hack.

audunw3• 5 years ago

There's probably not enough RAM. (64kB vs 256kB for the nRF52840). Certainly not for the full resolution of the display with color. But I'm sure a more basic port would be possible.

srvmshr• 5 years ago

Doom is becoming the NetBSD of computer games. People managed to port it everywhere

LukeShu• 5 years ago

I'm pretty sure Doom de-throned NetBSD at least a decade ago.

xook• 5 years ago

I would ask "Is there a BSDoom?" but this[0] might qualify.

[0] https://www.cs.unm.edu/~dlchao/flake/doom/

unmole• 5 years ago

Linux beat NetBSD ages ago.

gattilorenz• 5 years ago

Most Linux distributions dropped support for older architectures (Motorola 68K, Sparc, Vax and the likes) that NetBSD still somewhat actively supports [1]. Heck, many Linux distributions dropped even i386...

[1] https://www.netbsd.org/ports/#ports-tier2

grae_QED2• 5 years ago

At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if some one ported doom to their electric toothbrush.

Minor49er• 5 years ago

It might be hard to play, but I'm confident I could work my way up from Knee-Deep in the Fluoride through Thy Brush Consumed on a single tube of paste

krylon• 5 years ago

There Will Be Toothpaste

carl_dr• 5 years ago

Have you seen Doom on a pregnancy test?

https://twitter.com/foone/status/1302820468819288066?s=21

benbristow• 5 years ago

It's not actually running on the original hardware, it's running on external hardware which is controlling the display

https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1302913385764458498

detaro• 5 years ago

where "on a pregnancy test" means "they ripped out the original hardware from a pregnancy test and put in a new controller and new display, which then shows Doom"

grae_QED2• 5 years ago

hah! no, but, real or not, that's hilarious!

callmemclovin2• 5 years ago

That's true, but I guess it will take some years until manufacturers leave behind the proven line-up of cheap mikrocontrollers like the TI MSP430. They're so ubiquitous in these applications, TI even provides a Electric Toothbrush Controller Reference Design if you want to have a look at it.

humanistbot• 5 years ago

Now this is what I come to HN for. A true hack in the classic sense of the term. An absurd attempt to do something with technology that its designers had absolutely no intention of supporting, and learning quite a bit about it in the process. Bravo!

WalterBright• 5 years ago

This is also why I embrace Open Source! If Doom was closed source, none of this would happen.

moffkalast2• 5 years ago

the game was running at 34.5 fps

It can run Doom at 35 fps, but can't stream a good bluetooth signal to headphones more than 5 m away smh.

maxwelljoslyn• 5 years ago

Bluetooth devices are in such a sad state :^(

audunw3• 5 years ago

Have you tried a Bluetooth 5 LE headphone? It's a completely different radio and protocol from previous generation Bluetooth headphones. I don't know if there are any in the market yet. There certainly isn't any based on nRF5340 yet.

I don't know if the range will be better, but latency and pairing process should be much better.

callmemclovin2• 5 years ago

You're right, because the nRF52 series are Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) devices, they can't stream music at all :-) Music streaming is done via Bluetooth Classic (as of now). BLE != Bluetooth Classic

audunw3• 5 years ago

That's not true. BLE can stream music now, it's in the Bluetooth 5 standard. The nRF52 isn't great for it, there's nRF53 for that, but it's possible

https://www.nordicsemi.com/News/2020/01/Nordic-launches-a-Bl...

moffkalast2• 5 years ago

I was under the assumption that BLE chips have regular BL support as well as a fallback for when you actually want to use the thing for something productive. Is that not the case or are most phone manufacturers just lying while putting two chips on devices?

Like if a chip supports Bluetooth 5.1 that should include both, no?

MonaroVXR• 5 years ago

but can't stream a good bluetooth signal to headphones more than 5 m away smh.

So many factors, right I can't pull out the Bluetooth specs.

numpad0• 5 years ago

nRF52840

That's not a standard Bluetooth dongle, that's the go-to chip that runs a lot of smartwatches, tags, and health devices. Has community Arduino support as well.

sodality2• 5 years ago

Also the OpenSK project from Google uses them - build-your-own FIDO2 token :D

tombert• 5 years ago

It's sort of insane how ubiquitous outright computers are now. Like, I didn't know that USB dongles were full-on computers, but it doesn't surprise me either...Computers have gotten so cheap and small to a borderline-disposable level.

Kind of cool that I get to be a part of first generation experience that.

pantalaimon2• 5 years ago

To make your life easier, just get the official nRF52840 Dongle - it's only 10€ but has all GPIOs conveniently exposed. No need to repurpose the LED or the user button for a GPIO.

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-hardware/nrf...

josu• 5 years ago

I mean, to make your life easier just play Doom on your computer. But I don't think that was the point of this project.

Porting Doom to a USB Bluetooth Dongle

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