Move Over Toasters: Doom Is Now Playable Inside a PDF

Doom's been ported to everything from toasters to refrigerators, seemingly exhausting the possibilities. However, a high school student has achieved the seemingly impossible: porting Doom to a PDF file runnable within a browser.

While lacking sound and text (though, who needs those when procrastinating on taxes?), the feat is remarkable. Github user ading2210, inspired by TetrisPDF, leveraged Javascript within a browser's PDF reader to accomplish this. Browser security limitations restrict the full potential of PDF scripting, but it proved sufficient.

Using a six-color ASCII grid for visuals, ading2210 created a playable, albeit slow (80ms per frame), version of Doom. The result, while not high-fidelity, is surprisingly legible.

TetrisPDF's creator, Thomas Rinsma, acknowledged ading2210's superior "neater" implementation on Hacker News. While not ideal for a first Doom experience, the novelty of running Doom on such unconventional platforms (including, famously, gut bacteria) remains captivating.