“It runs DOOM” has become a meme among video game fans as programmers try to see which ridiculous system they can port the 1993 shooter’s public source code to. So far, makeshift video game consoles that can run DOOM include a Kodak digital camera, an electronic billboard truck, and a lab oscilloscope. Now, a McDonald’s cash register has joined the ranks of certified DOOM ports.
19-year-old gamer Ryan Edgar was able to port DOOM to a device usually reserved for ordering Big Mac combos. He obtained an old cash register from his local McDonalds when the fast food restaurant was updating their systems and getting rid of old devices. Since the old McDonald’s cash registers are essentially computers programmed to run specific cashier software, so they can theoretically run DOOM as well as any computer as long as the cashier software can be bypassed.
Edgar was able to access the cash register’s task manager with a simple CTL-ALT-DELETE, but there was an encryption on it. However, he was able to bypass the point-of-sale software and gain access to the underlying programming of the computer, after which it was simple to get the register to run DOOM.
Edgar shared his achievement on Twitter, and commenters were delighted. Edgar’s feat was the latest in a long line of unlikely devices that can now run the classic shooter. Some commenters suggested ideas for the next unlikely candidate to be repurposed into a DOOM engine, including one of the room-sized computers of the 1940s (which may not be entirely likely, given that these computers lacked the computing power of the home computers of 1993, as well as a screen). One commenter used the achievement to make jokes about McDonalds, saying, “Oh sure ice cream machine broke but you can still run doom back there I see how it is.”
No one knows what the next device to be hacked into playing DOOM will be, but it’s safe to say that a McDonald’s cash register is one of the more eccentric options. If nothing else, it’s an interesting programming project that reused a piece of equipment that would probably otherwise go to waste.
