Doom delivers five minutes of terminal violence on an IBM mainframe
Browser demo renders the classic shooter in ASCII, with no login required and considerable squinting encouraged
Doom can run on an IBM Z mainframe, but the real question is whether it can be played through a text terminal without causing eye strain. WND Software's browser demo connects to an IBM Z mainframe using SSH and a terminal emulator. Wojciech Graj's DOOM-ASCII provides the text-based action, replacing graphics with colored characters.
The game is playable, though distant objects may be hard to discern. Sessions last five minutes and can accommodate up to 50 users, though we managed to join easily. The terminal emulator setup is an entertaining demonstration of WND's software capabilities, though it may be more of a "because I can" challenge.
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