Quake on an oscilloscope
pekkavaaCited 4× on HN, 2016–2025
demo · general · evergreen · 2016–2025 on HN
A demo of Quake's E1M1 rendered as vector graphics on a Hitachi oscilloscope. A laptop generates the audio signal that the scope draws.
Cited as the canonical example of Quake running on an exotic display, usually in 'will it run Doom' threads.
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4 comments from Hacker News
> to extract vector data directly from the engine That got me thinking “I wonder if anyone has done this on an oscilloscope” and oddly I can't fine anyone who quite has. That DOOM objects are sprites and not actual 3D objects would limit the fidelity, but the scenery could be rendered at least. There are several examples of managing to use a high-speed scope as a low-res monochrome raster device (scanning like a CRT monitor does and turning the beam on & off as needed). I did find an example of Quake being done on a scope the way I was imagining: ▶ this video - as all objects are actual 3D models in Quake that even manages to give them some presence & shape. EDIT: then I read the second half of this post and saw ScopeDoom! I'm surprised there are no earlier examples that are easy to find.
Vector Display you say? Now... the next logical step is to make it play Doom (or Quake)..... with an extremely low framerate. ▶ this video
I like this guy. I thought this was going to be a more introductory video: link (holy c *, he published a lot of these since 2014, they're pretty good :) ) This has been done with quake: ▶ this video
OP question was actually plausible, as Quake and other open-sourced ID Software games have a long history of being ported / rendered to all kinds of exotic devices by the modding community: terminals [1], oscilloscopes [2], and many others. [1] link [2] ▶ this video