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Frame from Quake on an oscilloscope Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Quake on an oscilloscope

pekkavaa
Demos
YouTube
Cited on HN 4 times, 2016–2025, never outright recommended score 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Cited as the canonical example of Quake running on an exotic display, usually in 'will it run Doom' threads.

A demo of Quake's E1M1 rendered as vector graphics on a Hitachi oscilloscope. A laptop generates the audio signal that the scope draws.

“I did find an example of Quake being done on a scope the way I was imagining” (HN, 2025)

4 citations · Demos

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@ronjouch Oct 2016 Cites it
on HN thread Macbook Pro Touch Bar runs watchOS
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]
Quake rendered on an oscilloscope as an exotic port
@dspillett Nov 2025 Cites it
on HN thread Show HN: KiDoom – Running DOOM on PCB Traces
Read more
> 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.
Quake rendered on a scope with 3D models showing shape

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