By Richard Speed
Publication Date: 2026-11-08 11:19:00
offbeat
Browser demo renders the classic shooter in ASCII, with no login required and considerable squinting encouraged
Can an IBM Z mainframe run Doom? Of course it can. The more interesting question is whether you can play it through a text terminal without ruining your eyesight.
WND Software’s browser demo connects to an IBM Z mainframe over SSH using its terminal emulator. Wojciech Graj’s DOOM-ASCII supplies the text-based carnage, replacing conventional graphics with colored characters. There’s no sound.
It is, however, completely playable (although you might need to recalibrate your vision to work out what is…
