Doom delivers five minutes of terminal violence on an IBM mainframe
WND Software's browser demo connects to an IBM Z mainframe over SSH using its terminal emulator.
Key points
- Sessions are limited to five minutes, with room for up to 50 simultaneous users, but we had no trouble getting in.
- It's undeniably an enjoyable way to burn through five minutes.
- Using a terminal emulator, while a neat demonstration of the capabilities of WND's software, is perhaps more an example of "because I can" masochism.
That Doom can be persuaded to run on an IBM Z mainframe is not particularly noteworthy.
A year ago, an IBM consultant persuaded Doom to run on IBM Z and LinuxONE using VNC to bring the pixelated mayhem to life.
Additional details
- Wojciech Graj's DOOM-ASCII supplies the text-based carnage, replacing conventional graphics with colored characters.
- The more interesting question is whether you can play it through a text terminal without ruining your eyesight.
- Keeping the action playable through a text terminal is the more entertaining achievement.
- It is, however, completely playable (although you might need to recalibrate your vision to work out what is going on, particularly with regard to distant objects).
- This writer played the original shareware release on an Amstrad ALT386SX portable, so squinting at an indistinct demon felt reassuringly familiar.
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