Few devices should be left today that have not run the game DOOM on occasion. We have seen it in kitchen robots, within Minecraft, within the game itself, and even in the Windows notepad. Now they have got run DOOM on a Raspberry Pi RP2040 processor.
We know Raspberry Pi for its Single Board Computer (SBC) but they have been expanding. They currently offer their own processor named RP2040. It is a fairly simple processor intended for IoT and small automation projects.
This processor is characterized by having two ARM Cortex-M0+ cores that work at a frequency of 133 MHz. This chip integrates a total of 264 kB SRAM. It also has two UART, two SPI controllers, two I2C controllers, sixteen PWM channels, eight programmable I/O posts, and one USB 1.1.
Playing DOOM on a custom key with the RP2040
The guys from TheKeebProject have created a custom key based on the Raspberry Pi RP2040. Within this personalized key they have managed to launch the game DOOM. So the list of sites where the game has not been installed and launched, is reduced a little more.
For this project they have created a custom PCB based on the RP2040. The interesting thing about this project is that its size is so small that it can fit inside a keycap. In addition, it has been sealed with transparent resin.
have used a doom version existing created by Graham Sanderson. They have made some tweaks to enable support for SPI and I2C display modules.
As they have highlighted, the idea was emulate DOOM with the as many functionalities as possible from the original game. They wanted it to have stereo sound, the ability to play network multiplayer, be able to save and load, and any other features of the original game. To play it, you have chosen the resolution of 320×200 pixels.
Playing this game in one key is still not the most practical thing in the world, why fool ourselves. Now, develop a board to do it and optimize it to enjoy it, if it’s interesting. We add to this that the final result is, at least, worth mentioning.
A laborious process that has required create a pcb special from scratch so that could install inside a keycap. It has not been easy to do it, since there is not a large amount of space that we say. In addition, it has been installed a display and a USB-C port for power. Come on, an achievement.
You can replicate it at home
The creators of this project have seen fit to make it an open source project. This allows any user to replicate it and even improve it. They have created a repository with the source code for the RP2040, as well as the necessary schematics on GitHub. You can also find the DOOM game as they have managed to run it in this project.
We never tire of seeing the possibilities offered by DOOM and the Raspberry Pi Foundation products. The combination of these two elements has resulted in an interesting and, to say the least, striking project. We will see what is the next creation with a Pi or where it is possible to run DOOM.
