Computer Programmer Makes Doom Playable on a Pregnancy Test

Until 2020, pregnancy tests have had one primary function. A life-changing function, sure, but there have probably been many people who buy a pregnancy test and think, is this all there is? Shouldn’t this be able to do more? And now it can, as one computer programmer was able to play Doom on a pregnancy test.
It is no secret that our appreciation of gaming is vast here. We’ve seen the science that says playing video games with your kids is good for their health and beneficial to their development. We even have a gaming league just for dads. So when one computer programmer was able to take the “Will it run Doom?” challenge to the epic next level, we have to tip our collective The Dad cap.
Foone Turing was the programmer who was able to take the “Will it Doom?” challenge and just completely blow it out of the water. For those unfamiliar with the long history of the “Will it run Doom?” challenge, it basically boils down to people trying to play the legendary video game on appliances, gadgets, and anything that would surprise you. Think calculators, fridges, ATMs, etc.
And now, pregnancy tests.
Yesterday I had a lot of retweets and reddit posts and such for playing Doom on a pregnancy test.
But as I explained then, it wasn’t really PLAYING on a pregnancy test, it was just a video being played back, not an interactive game.Well, now it is. It’s Pregnancy Test Doom! pic.twitter.com/Nrjyq07EVv
— foone (@Foone) September 7, 2020
Foon is a programmer who works with decades-old hardware, so if anyone was gonna pull off something like this, it was them. He started by posting a video of the classic game on Twitter but then was able to up the ante and actually play Doom on the pregnancy test using a wireless keyboard.
As he explains on Twitter, he did have to make a couple of essential changes, namely the CPU and screen, but it’s still amazing he could get the game to run in a pregnancy test shell on a 128-by-32 pixel display.
I will never look at a pregnancy test the same again.
Reddit’s mad at me for the Doom thing because it keeps getting posted without all the details and they think I’m scamming them, but they’re doing it in the wrong way.
they’re giving me IDEAS
— foone (@Foone) September 8, 2020