Move over toasters: Here's Doom played via rotary telephone

An image of a demon dying to a shotgun in Doom 2.
(Image credit: id Software)

The question: Why do people try to get Doom running on everything under the sun and hack together the most bizarre control methods they can think of? The answer: Because it is cool. Id's classic shooter is not only a landmark in gaming history but, over 25 years later, is capable of running on any modern hardware, never mind the vast array of electronic gizmos we all have lying around, and has a fairly limited range of inputs.

On the inputs side we've seen folk controlling Doom with everything from a DDR mat to, erm, trained rodents (we will return to them). Twitter user Yoshino decided that his contribution would be a rotary telephone: For the younger crowd, these are landline telephones with a rotary dial (a numbered finger wheel). God I'm old.

Returning to Yoshino, a machine translation of his words reads: "A fierce man who operates Doom with a dial-type phone has finally appeared. Maybe the operability was bad in the past."

From the video we can see the commands are bound as follows: 1 is shoot; 2 is left; 3 is right; 4 is forwards; 5 is back; 6 is the action button. Let's rock 'n roll.

It's easy to forget but at release Doom was the most technically advanced game around (and would remain so for years), and there's undeniably a thrill in seeing what was once the cutting edge running on potatoes or being controlled by older tech like a rotary phone.

It seems a month never goes by without some OG Doom news, and long may that continue. Pianos are old news: Want to see it running on a pile of mouldy potatoes? Here you go. Or how about on a pregnancy test? My favourite recent story is that one researcher trained rats called Carmack and Romero to play the game. Next up let's go for the combo: Rats play Doom via telephone.

Rich Stanton
Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

Read more
Doom running in a PDF file
Galaxy-brained high schooler ports Doom to a PDF file, paving the way for a bloody revolution in invoicing
A screenshot from a YouTube video of Doom running on an Apple Lightning to HDMI adapter, with a monitor showing an imp on screen.
Doom on a dongle: Turns out the Apple Lightning to HDMI adapter has more than enough grunt to blast imps with aplomb
Doom: The Dark Ages with original Doomguy's head Photoshopped on top
Doom: The Dark Ages' 'iron tank' gameplay takes things back to the very beginning: 'It feels more like classic Doom than any game we've made up to this point'
Doom Captcha on a colourful orange and yellow background
Thanks to Doom, I can finally solve captcha prompts without wanting to spoon my eyeballs out and wander into the wilderness
Doom: The Dark Ages art
After Doom Eternal's intense acrobatics, Doom: The Dark Ages will focus on simplified, ergonomic controls: 'You shouldn't be fighting the controls, you should be fighting the bad guys'
The cover of the video game Doom
Nightdive's remaster of Doom + Doom 2 gets multiplayer mod support, spectator mode for co-op play, and stops you from losing your mind searching for red doors
Latest in FPS
Rainbow Six Siege year 9 season 2 key art - two Rainbow Six Siege operators facing each other
'Siege 2 was never on the table': Rainbow Six Siege X director explains why the 10-year-old FPS doesn't need a sequel
rainbow six siege sledge
After holding out for 10 years, Rainbow Six Siege is finally going free-to-play (kind of)
rainbow six siege x dual front mode
Rainbow Six Siege is getting its first permanent mode in 10 years, and it throws every Siege rule out the window
Fragpunk characters with weapon drawn
The latest big game on Steam is Fragpunk, or as I like to call it, 'kitchen-sink Counter-Strike'
spectre divide
Spectre Divide and its studio are shutting down after just six months: 'The industry is in a tough spot right now'
Masked Counter-Terrorist in helmet in forefront with sunglasses and beret-wearing CT in background touching headset
There's hope yet for Classic Offensive after its Steam rejection: The team behind the Counter-Strike 1.6 revival mod is in touch with Valve about its 'concerns'
Latest in News
Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 3.
Mass Effect's Jennifer Hale, who played femshep, 'saw no line' before she recorded them for Bioware's flagship trilogy: 'It was all cold reading on the spot'
A side by side comparison of two Asus Q-Release systems, with the original design on the top and the bottom showing the apparently new design.
Asus appears to have quietly changed the design of its Q-Release PCIe slot after claims of potential GPU pin damage
Microsoft's Task Manager in Windows 11
After years of complaints about Windows Task Manager displaying CPU utilization incorrectly, a fix is finally on its way
Sony RGB LED panel tech
Sony's fixing the wrong panel problems while showing off its new 'RGB LED' backlight tech with outrageous colours and brightness
Super Mario World
Super Nintendo consoles appear to be running ever-so-slightly faster as they age and speedrunning detectives are hot on the case
A photo of an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor surrounded by DDR5 memory sticks from Corsair, Kingston, and Lexar
Fresh leak suggests Intel's on-again-off-again Arrow Lake CPU refresh is back on the menu (boys)