Playing Doom on a Hell of Rotten Potatoes

Running Doom on unusual devices is nothing new, but every time we imagine a ceiling or limit for the practice, something new appears that leaves us astonished. Today we discovered a different project, which doesn't focus so much on hardware but on the energy needed to make the game run well. YouTuber Equalo decided to explore the classic path of using potatoes as power sources, connected to a Raspberry Pi Zero…

The original Doom will turn 27 next December 10, but honestly, we don't feel so comfortable calling it "old" or "retro". The fan community created countless mods, developed new challenges like speedruns, and turned it into the "Hello World" of this generation by running it everywhere. The latest novelty was the pregnancy test hack (though personally I'm still waiting for a multiprocessor or a fuel pump), and what's next on our list is… potatoes?

"Potato Doom"

That's right: YouTuber Equalo preferred to move a bit away from the typical "I'm going to run Doom here" and use a Raspberry Pi Zero, powered by a network of potatoes. As we already know well, a piece of zinc and another of copper stuck into a potato or a lemon allow us to obtain a bit of energy, essentially using fruits and vegetables as batteries. With some quick calculations, Equalo determined he would need about 770 potato slices to reach 4.5 volts at 100 mA, the absolute minimum for running the Pi Zero. After spending three days boiling and cutting more than 45 kilograms of potatoes with the help of his wife and a friend, Equalo discovered something…

… it doesn't work. His calculations for the Raspberry Pi Zero were too optimistic, and the computer needs more energy during its initialization than the potato array can provide (in fact, the 100 mA are 'standby'). Five days later, with two accumulated failures and a garage virtually uninhabitable from the rotten smell, he decided to save the project by replacing the Pi Zero with a Texas Instruments TI-84 Plus calculator. With a new minimum of 4.5 volts at 30 mA, the rotting potatoes managed to make the calculator with Doom work correctly.

Equalo's last comment? "Don't do this at home". From his point of view, it wasn't worth it and he doesn't feel rewarded by the result… but that doesn't take away his privilege of being the first enthusiast in the world to play Doom using potatoes.